[NEW YORK] Chinese companies cut back on the small packages they shipped to the US last month, as President Donald Trump looks to close off the trade and impose tariffs on all imports from China.
In February, the value of the small packages shipped from China to the US fell by almost 5 per cent from a year earlier, according to data released on Thursday (Mar 20) by the customs authorities in Beijing.
The drop came after the Trump administration threw the trade into chaos with the sudden announcement in early February it would act to impose a levy on all goods coming from China and end the loophole that allows items with a declared value under US$800 to enter the US tariff-free.
The slump was likely even more pronounced when adjusted for the effect of an earlier-than-usual Chinese New Year holiday, which fell entirely in February 2024.
The value of parcels this February declined relative to a month when many factories and companies were on holidays for more than a week.
The first two months of this year saw US$3.5 billion worth of parcels shipped to the US from China, just 2.3 per cent higher than the same period in 2024.
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The trade in small packages has boomed in recent years as US consumers took advantage of low-cost shopping apps such as Shein and Temu to use the loophole. The Trump administration said it was ending such practice but then suspended that ruling.
It’s expected the US government will cancel the so-called “de minimis” exemption eventually, once authorities develop the capacity to process the almost four million packages that arrived every day last year.
In total, an estimated 1.4 billion of de minimis shipments entered the US last year, with many likely coming from China.
China officially reported about US$23 billion of such exports last year – half the amount estimated by economists at Nomura Holdings. BLOOMBERG
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