President Trump has halted the administration’s plan to impose tariffs on small-value packages coming from China, allegedly to give governmental agencies more time to sort out how to process the millions of packages that cross the US border daily without paying taxes.
The Department of Commerce could put in place “adequate systems” to “fully and expeditely process and collect tariff revenue,” according to the executive order, which was dated Wednesday ( 5 February ).
” It’s only showing we’re moving quickly, and the implications are not completely understood when some of these regulations are put in place”, said John Lash, party vice-president of product strategy at the supply chain platform e2open, pointing out that Trump’s order affected large numbers of small items, some in transit.
” The levels are completely incredible”, Lash said.
” And all of a sudden, they go from not requiring filing ( for tariffs )… to actually requiring full filing, which is a complicated task”.
Trump pulled the plug earlier this week by increasing Chinese goods’ tariffs by 10 %, which has a wide bipartisan support in Washington.
Goods shipped through duty-free packages were subject to both the new 10 % and the already-imposed 25 % tariffs, which included the most popular products from China.
In the weeks leading up to his next administration, Trump’s laws were put a second delay, including directions to impose levies on Mexico and Canada that were suspended after the two friends took measures to calm his concerns about border security and drug smuggling.
The US Postal Service announced on Tuesday that it would no longer accept packages from mainland China and Hong Kong, but it would follow up with a selection the following morning. It stated that it would function with Customs and Border Protection to put a set system in place for the new taxes.
” It’s one of those items where you put in any change so fast it catches people ready”, Lash said.
The so-called de minimis exemption, which was introduced in 1938, was meant to help the movement of little plans valued at no more than US$ 5, or approximately US US$ 106.
The threshold increased to US$ 200 in 1994 and US$ 800 in 2016. But the rapid rise of cross-border e-commerce, driven by China, has challenged the intent of the decades-old customs exception rule.