“The online marketplace said sales would now be handled by “locally based sellers”, with orders fulfilled from within the country.”
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That will lower the duty, since it will be based on the wholesale value, not the retail price. The Chinese are able to do arithmetic.
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Wondering if Amazon will be approached for AWD space?
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Eagerly awaiting headline “Amazon to Handle Temu U.S. Distribution.”
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Sure, but they weren’t paying duty at all before.
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Won’t be a headline, but there will probably a seller or two who use MCF for Temu orders, but they will fail because the other Temu sellers will be paying less.
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I wish the press and others would stop conflating the closing of the de minimus loophole–which is antiquated 80+ years after initiation given modern payment methods, was applied worldwide to incoming goods over $800, and makes shipped packages consistent with all other import duties–with the tariff situation, which is brand new, highly varied, can not be summed up in one sentence, and…controversial.
Temu and Shein abused de minimus to compete unfairly with US-based retailers. Now they can no longer do that, so they will pivot to a model that preserves as much advantage as possible. So I’m personally not sure that I’m a fan of their US-based “partners”…but then again, I have never shopped on or purchased from Temu/Shein and/or downloaded their apps, so I’m not a loyal customer clamoring to keep them going.
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Absolutely correct, but at least it’s doing something instead of leaving the door wide open. The way I look at it, at least some of the revenue will remain in the US. Taxes will be paid on warehouse property, income tax, sales tax as well as warehouse labor for pick, pack, ship.
We are a host family for a couple University exchange students from China. They don’t live with us but we take them out to do things and help them out if they have any issues or questions. We took them horse riding, then to lunch this weekend and they asked me what I thought of the tariffs and de minimis. They (and most Chinese) have no idea how one sided this whole things has been. When I explained in detail what was happening, they were shocked. They’ve bought stuff here and shipped back to their families so they know full well the hassles and cost of going through China customs. They had no idea that we didn’t do the same for our imports.
The CCP spin on this is also pretty comical. They are telling their people that sure, it’s hurting their economy but we’re in a fight for survival. They tell their people that we are fighting in the streets over scraps of bread with shoot outs in the supermarkets for food. This kind of stuff really opens the eyes of the students. They see what their friends and families are being told and they see the reality of life here. Sadly, the students are all worried that their visas might get cancelled and they will be deported. They aren’t here trying to spy or steal technology, they just want to get a good education, learn about the world outside of China and prepare themselves for their future.
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Not to mention they have long had the advantage of USPS subsidized e-packet rates from China to US for Temu and Shein sellers. Way less than what we would pay for the same mail class to China.
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About de minimis terminating, or tariffs, or just both and generally?
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Both tariffs and de minimis. It’s just smoke and mirrors to detract the people so they don’t take their frustrations out on the CCP. They do this all the time with Japan. Whenever something bad happens in China, they start putting anti Japan “news” out to rile up the citizenry. Then they act surprised when people trash a Toyota dealership and vandalize random Japanese vehicles on the streets. Not so different from our folks vandalizing random Teslas…
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Some Chinese are so used to having to get around their government and its rules that they see little difference between our government and theirs.
When I traveled to China some years back, our guide also guided groups of Chinese travellers who visited California. He counted on tips from his American customers, and he counted on being able to sneak in iPhones from the US which he could resell for less than the iPhones sold for in China with the Chinese taxes on them. Many of the travellers on these trips would also bring back foreign made products and resell them for less than they cost in China.
Visiting a mall in China, one can be amazed at the number of stores bearing foreign luxury labels and their higher prices than one would find on Fifth or Madison Aves in NYC.
Tax avoidance is pretty common.
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