President Donald Trump has paused the removal of the de minimis exemption on goods from China, temporarily putting an end to the confusion and high fees that have plagued both customers and businesses over the past few days. The de minimus exemption allows packages valued at less than $800 to enter the country duty-free, but the exemption had been removed as part of Trump’s tariffs against China that went into effect this week.
The pause is only temporary. It was issued this morning through an executive order, which says that the de minimis exemption will be removed again when the Secretary of Commerce notifies the administration that “adequate systems are in place to fully and expediently process and collect tariff revenue.”
One of the major issues facing implementation of the tariffs was processing and collecting fees on the vast number of packages that were no longer safe under the exemption. The executive order seems to acknowledge the need for process and staffing changes, halting the de minimus removal until at least some of the shipping chaos can be contained.
Following the implementation of the tariffs, the United States Postal Service stopped and restarted accepting packages from China and Hong Kong, and people have observed additional import fees on packages shipped from China. Companies like Shein and Temu depend on the rule as a way to directly ship low-cost goods to buyers without requiring them to pay import fees.
The 10 percent tariff on goods from China is still in effect. Trump also announced tariffs against Mexico and Canada, but those were put on a one-month pause this week.
