USPS Halts All Packages From China, Sending the Ecommerce Industry Into Chaos (wired.com) 88
The United States Postal Service has suspended all package shipments from China and Hong Kong following President Donald Trump's decision to eliminate the de minimis exemption, which previously allowed small packages under $800 to enter the U.S. without import duties. "The move could potentially create chaos and confusion across the online shopping industry, as well as make purchases more expensive for consumers, especially because many global manufacturers and internet sellers are located in China," reports Wired. "Shoppers are now on the hook not only for the additional 10 percent tariff, but also whatever original tax rate their products were exempted from until Tuesday." From the report: Cindy Allen, who has worked in international trade for over 30 years and is the CEO of the consulting firm Trade Force Multiplier, gave WIRED an example of how much additional cost the tariff will incur: A woman's dress made of synthetic fiber shipped from China through de minimis will now be subject to a regular 16 percent tariff, a 7.5 percent Section 301 duty specifically for goods from China, the new 10 percent tariff required by Trump, additional processing fees and customs brokerage fees, and perhaps increased brokering and handling costs due to the sudden change in rules. "Will the dress that was $5 now cost $5.50 or $15?" says Allen. "That we don't know. It depends on how those retailers react and change their business models."
In the immediate term, clearing customs will become a challenge for most ecommerce companies. Their long-term concern, though, is the potential impact on profitability. The appeal of Temu and Shein and similar Chinese ecommerce companies is how affordable their products are. If that changes, the ecommerce landscape and consumer behavior in the US may change significantly as well. While the USPS has announced the suspension of accepting any parcels from China and Hong Kong, CBP hasn't elaborated on how the agency will enforce Trump's new tariffs other than saying in an announcement that it will reject de minimis exemption requests from China starting today.
In the immediate term, clearing customs will become a challenge for most ecommerce companies. Their long-term concern, though, is the potential impact on profitability. The appeal of Temu and Shein and similar Chinese ecommerce companies is how affordable their products are. If that changes, the ecommerce landscape and consumer behavior in the US may change significantly as well. While the USPS has announced the suspension of accepting any parcels from China and Hong Kong, CBP hasn't elaborated on how the agency will enforce Trump's new tariffs other than saying in an announcement that it will reject de minimis exemption requests from China starting today.
Oh great (Score:2)
The pcie riser I have on order from China was supposed to be on the way... Wonder how that will turn out.
Well, no homelab for anybody now!
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Re: Oh great (Score:2)
Probably finding a new source for all of the counterfeit and substandard crap. E.g. fuses that allow more current than they're supposed to, connectors that don't crimp right and fall apart, gas sensors that only pretend to work, etc. I mostly stopped buying from Amazon because of that shit, I couldn't care less what happens to them.
Re:Oh great (Score:5, Funny)
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What's the problem? This will spur a great resurgence in American manufacturing of small low-value electronic components and you'll get your parts, perhaps as soon as 4-10 years from now.
Not to mention more locally-grown food instead of imports. ... :-)
I'm planting avocado trees tomorrow
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I am sure you can get a far more expensive (but not better) one domestically now. Or maybe not if the market is not interesting enough. But hey, maybe you can import one yourself with just a few $100 in taxes and fees and a few hours of bureaucracy for that $10 card!
Re:my flow! my flow! (Score:5, Informative)
yes some quality things are made in china, but that's small percent.
I will agree there are a lot of knock off goods, but China is a major global manufacturer for many name brand goods. It's not just a small percent that are of quality.
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This is for small packages. Massive logistics for major brands are not "small packages under 800USD" unless they were specifically dodging the existing taxation and tariff regime by breaking things into "less than 800USD" packages, or misreporting the actual value.
Granted, both are common in Chinese commerce.
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How many stamps do you have to put on a shipping container to send it with the US Postal Service?
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Which happens to actually not be true. There are quite a few quality products coming out from China these days. You can also get cheap crap, but from my experience on Aliexpress, that is rare if you have a bit of a clue. And that is already very generously priced in by the massive savings compared to buying the same things domestically.
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ORANGE PIGFUCKER PIECE OF SHIT (Score:4, Informative)
Hard to believe all these MORON MOGAS votes for this PIECE OF SHIT.
Egg prics - up.
Fuel prices -up
Milk prices - up
FUCK you magas and orange pigfucker supporters.
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But, but, but, you are supposed to be distracted by the onslaught of crazy and lose focus on actual results
Wait! Are you not watching your required quota of Fox News?
This WILL be reported
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It's funny. It's not like there's a tube maker here. It just means I am paying extra to a guy who ordered them from aliexpress before I did.
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egg prices are up because of the bird flu and chickens being euthanized, not because of orange man.
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And the best way to decrease egg prices is to end bird flu, which you can't do by hiding all of the health reports and banning testing, like the orange man wants.
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The Trump administration has intervened in the release of important studies on the bird flu, as an outbreak escalates across the United States.
One of the studies would reveal whether veterinarians who treat cattle have been unknowingly infected by the bird flu virus. Another report documents cases in which people carrying the virus might have infected their pet cats.
The studies were slated to appear in the official journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The distinguished journal has been published without interruption since 1952.
Its scientific reports have been swept up in an “immediate pause” on communications by federal health agencies ordered by Dorothy Fink, the acting secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Fink’s memo covers “any document intended for publication,” she wrote, “until it has been reviewed and approved by a presidential appointee.” It was sent on President Donald Trump’s first full day in office.
That’s concerning, former CDC officials said, because a firewall has long existed between the agency’s scientific reports and political appointees.
“MMWR is the voice of science,” said Tom Frieden, a former CDC director and the CEO of the nonprofit organization Resolve to Save Lives.
“This idea that science cannot continue until there’s a political lens over it is unprecedented,” said Anne Schuchat, a former principal deputy director at the CDC. “I hope it’s going to be very short-lived, but if it’s not short-lived, it’s censorship.”
White House officials meddled with scientific studies on covid-19 during the first Trump administration, according to interviews and emails collected in a 2022 report from congressional investigators. Still, the MMWR came out as scheduled.
“What’s happening now is quite different than what we experienced in covid, because there wasn’t a stop in the MMWR and other scientific manuscripts,” Schuchat said.
Neither the White House nor HHS officials responded to requests for comment. ...
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/30... [cnn.com]
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Trolls aside it actually is orange man (Score:5, Insightful)
Regulations are written in blood. You can't just start slashing them and then pack the courts full of pro-corporate sycophants and not have consequences. But those consequences take a while to hit and since the media is controlled by billionaires it's easy to shift to blame around and confuse the issue
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egg prices are up because of the bird flu and chickens being euthanized, not because of orange man.
Nah, according to Trump it's his own fault. According to him it was Biden's fault they went up, then it must be Trump's fault they went up further.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Gas is down where I live. Eggs were gonna go up no matter what, we don't import those anyway. But we do import bird flu.
Re: ORANGE PIGFUCKER PIECE OF SHIT (Score:2)
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... it appeases the hateful bigots who voted for him...
A plurality of voters voted Trump into office. Roughly 1/3rd voted for Trump, 1/3 voted for Harris, and 1/3 elected to stay home or vote for a minor party candidate. If you want to call the people that voted for Trump "hateful bigots" then expect them to be motivated to show up again in the next election just to piss you off. I suggest being civil, because for the next four years (barring something very bad happening) Trump will be POTUS. In less than 2 years there will be another federal election (bar
Don't blame Melania (Score:1)
Melania is the ORANGE PIGFUCKER.
Porky is also full of shit; also literally. I bet it does take him 12 flushes as he says... and it's reported the plumber was constantly busy at the whitehouse.
Seriously, did nobody realize that is most likely because he's flushing his diapers? And look how he stands and walks sometimes. Plus the baggy suits. The only odd part is how he's been doing that for decades... but his personal doc was a specialist... can you guess in what? (go look. lol.)
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As not a complete moron I knew I would be getting fucked by massive price increases (among endless other ways), but there is some tiny satisfaction in you evil and/or idiotic jackasses who voted for that fucking orange rapist deranged senile moron currently calling himself President being surprised by just how badly you're getting fucked too. Buckle up you conservative pieces of shit, your life is going to keep getting worse, and it's your own god damn fucking fault. Democrats aren't perfect and do
Re: ORANGE PIGFUCKER PIECE OF SHIT (Score:2)
Making America great again has a price. Nothing on this world is free.
Price rises not down to Trump (Score:2)
Hard to believe all these MORON MOGAS votes for this PIECE OF SHIT.
No, no, you have it wrong. These price rises are down to the liberal elite, the wokerati and communist, fascist countries like Denmark that the US should just take over.
Wait... what? (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean the entire world and EVERYBODY on it is dependent on each other?
Crazy, just crazy, it is like the whole world has been integrating for the past 80 years, and the trumptardians are going to change it on their say-so
What is next? Drag their throne to the beach and decree that the tide won't come in
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Most of the world has 25-100% tariffs on all imports from countries that are not close strategic allies.
Try shipping American fashion products to China and see what tariffs you pay...
Show Pitch: Surprise Shipping Container (Score:3)
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Yeah but we are, supposed to, pay GST at least through the bigger Chinese ecommerce sites even if they offer 'free' shipping.
Any duties should be paid at online checkout, not stopped at the physical border after it has travelled from Asia.
Got my Aliexpress shopping done early (Score:2)
I flooded Aliexpress with orders for the past three months, ordering all the small shit I could think of. Got me lots of crap. I was too late on the Chinese vacuum tubes, though. I'll have to pay the US markup from a reseller.
Urgh (Score:4, Informative)
Almost none of the things I've ordered from Aliexpress et al over the last few months was available via an American manufacturer. And they were too obscure to be anything an American supplier would be interested in importing (HDMI EDID simulators?)
This is going to suck especially for anyone waiting for spare parts to come in.
Yes, the supply of cheap sprocket sets is at an end, but so is a lot of the stuff that only comes from China after the same Republican party that's gung ho about tariffs and destroying imports today destroyed our manufacturing industry in the 1980s, encouraging businesses to off shore manufacturing and celebrating the resultant destruction of unions as a result.
I am genuinely worried with this level of malignant mismanagement we'll be looking at food shortages by the end of the year. And Trump's supporters are so tribal they'll respond to this claiming I'm an alarmist, and then justify it as "necessary" when it happens, because nobody is willing to admit Trump's a problem who has any influence over the bastard.
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stop calling it a tarriff, because maga folks have a hard on for that word. Call it what it really is, an import tax.
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Re: Urgh (Score:2)
Still cheaper to ship from China (Score:1)
The really messed up thing is that it will still cost me more to send the same thing to another state than it does for someone to ship it from China to my front door.
https://www.ecomcrew.com/why-c... [ecomcrew.com]
For the nerds: counts against your laptop (Score:2)
If you order a new laptop from, say, Lenovo, it drop-ships from China.
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Your Lenovo laptop probably wasn't under $800 so it wouldn't be under de minimus. No change, except for the new taxes.
But the average de minimus package is ~$40 and there are a LOT of them. The point of de minimus is to not tie up customs with insignificant shit. The US has traditionally been a big proponent, bullying other countries into raising their exception limits. But now slamming it to zero... that's going to be some nice chaos.
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How long til it drop ships from Vietnam instead?
End the postal exemption... (Score:2, Insightful)
If Trump really wants to go after China he should end the special rules under the international postal agreements that make shipping stuff from China to the US so cheap.
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https://www.supplychaindive.co... [supplychaindive.com]
Raising rates did allow USPS to start making money on those packages, though it also slashed volume by more than 50%, also due to Covid.
https://www.gao.gov/products/g... [gao.gov]
So, mission accomplished, I guess.
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If Trump really wants to go after China he should end the special rules under the international postal agreements that make shipping stuff from China to the US so cheap.
Isn't that what he just did?
I'm confused, can you be more specific?
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What trump just did is eliminated the exemption whereby things coming into the US that are below a certain value can come in without having to pay customs and duty and other fees.
Say welcome to the EU handlng fee scam (Score:1)
In the EU the post office can charge anything they like as 'handling fee'.
So besides getting your packages 3 weeks too late, the post office will rip you off with exorbitant handling fees although the whole process is completely automated.
Good job Trump voters (Score:5, Insightful)
For fuck sakes get over your goddamn pride and admit that you fucked up so we can try to fix this shit. I know some of you think because you're old and retired you're untouchable and maybe you are. Right up until they stop paying for your pills. As for the rest of you when this bullshit costs you your job at 50 and you're completely unemployable what the hell do you think is going to happen?
You are in the fuck around and find out stage. If you start panicking a little maybe just maybe your other elected representatives who still think they need your votes might move to put the brakes on the worst of this shit long enough for people like me to clean up after your mess
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There's around 245 million people legally allowed to vote in the USA. Of those, 77284118 voted for Trump. That's 31.5%. Harris got 30%. In no way did either get a majority. In no way did Trump get an overwhelming amount of votes. There are around 340 million US citizens, so by your claim Trump only had support from 22.7% of US citizens. If he had been honest about wanting to invade Greenland and turn Gaza into a luxury resort, that number would have been lower. Please, stop repeating bullshit you he
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You have put our entire fucking economy into a tailspin because of whatever stupid reasons you had for voting for a senile felon who stole classified documents.
You are going to have to be more specific on which senile felon that stole classified documents you are referring to, there's been so many.
National sales tax (Score:5, Interesting)
Take a look at your tax bill from last year. Now double it.
That's the Donald Trump tax plan.
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Take a look at your tax bill from last year. Now double it. That's the Donald Trump tax plan.
Trump's plan is to hide that tax increase. Your tax bill would be the same or even lower, but you would be indirectly taxed through tariffs which would make the products you buy more expensive. Part to the higher price would cover the tariffs and would effectively be an indirect tax.
Dresses for $5 shouldn't exist at all. (Score:5, Interesting)
Dresses for $5 shouldn't exist at all. That is in practice a one-usage-dress. Buy quality instead, not dresses made of plastic ("synthetic fiber").
Don't wear a dress at all then (Score:1)
Exactly the statement that Kayne was making.
They've existed for decades (Score:2)
Outside of a few people who can afford extremely expensive tailored clothing everything we buy is made in sweat shops by slave labor. There used to be a website that would tell you who made your stuff. Years ago I remember looking up a soccer ball I bought my kid and finding it was made by a kid about the same age as mine.
The point is cutting out middlemen is all that happened here and all that's happening now is a new tax is being imposed by Republican so that t
The real issue (Score:3)
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And the cost of the paperwork. I'm feeling the effects of Brexit on importing something that was only available in the UK to Spain: I got a customs bill yesterday for 1.51 EUR in duty and 31.25 EUR in admin fees for stopping the package and charging me the duty.
So this is what it's going to be like? (Score:2)
Another round of Calvinball every day for the next four years?
Hey China (Score:3)
If you really want piss the US off, stop with the currency manipulation. Trump has already started threatening BRICS if they use their own currency(ies) within their own clique, what if you called his bluff?
Price everything in Yuan or euros instead of $US and my ordering of stuff from your country won't be more expensive when the USD to AUD exchange rate changes.
(Sure, I'm an Aussie who is sick of the Canberra sycophancy but after Scott Morrison cluelessly trashed our relationship with China when Mr Trump was last in office, we owe America no favours.)
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(Sure, I'm an Aussie who is sick of the Canberra sycophancy but after Scott Morrison cluelessly trashed our relationship with China when Mr Trump was last in office, we owe America no favours.)
Thanks to AUKUS, Australia owes the USA $368 billion dollars.
Imagine if that money were spent domestically on schools or hospitals or railways or affordable housing.
Rest of world... (Score:3)
Australian and New Zealand eliminated their de minimis equivalents for large overseas retailers some years ago. What they did was reach an agreement with the big resellers, AliExpress, Temu, etc that they would charge the very simple GST at order time. Then remit the tax to the government much like onshore companies. There was an exemption for small/occasional shipping companies (like those that couldn't even find New Zealand on a map but ship there because they're shipping provider can), this levelled the playing field a little between the local companies and the mass shippers. But didn't result in any extraordinary distortion of the market. However, those were planned and executed in an orderly fashion, and were feeding into far far simpler tax systems that didn't require multiple rates for different kinds of goods.
Return to yesteryear (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in ancient times, like the 1970's, there were companies specializing in "import/export", mostly the import for China->US trade in trinkets, and low end electronics. These companies were put out of business by direct ship to consumer. Their value add was paperwork, warehousing and for the better shops ... some quality control (they actually vetted the supplier, rather than playing Russian roulette with some mostly anonymous figures on the China side.
Going from direct back to intermediaries is going to be disruptive and will cost more. But it wouldn't be the end of the world, and we might have a lot less waste, and perhaps energy savings (surely shipping by the pallet by boat is more efficient than packaging each item in plastic and sending by air mail.
Global free trade for everyone? (Score:1)
NOW it's gonna be normal / EU-like (Score:2)
Trump is waging war against US (Score:2)
He is a traitor actively trying to destroy this country.