U.S. is cracking down on Shein and Temu by closing a loophole that makes their cheap goods exempt from tariffs

tardigrada@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 7 points – Biden is cracking down on Shein and Temu by closing a loophole that makes their cheap goods exempt from tariffs
fortune.com

The U.S. administration is cracking down on cheap products sold out of China by companies such as Temu and Shein by saying that companies are no longer exempt from tariffs simply by shipping goods that they claim to be worth less than $800.

U.S. President Joe Biden would no longer exclude these “de minimis” imports from tariffs under a proposed rule released Friday to tax all imports if they’re covered under Sections 201 or 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, or Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.

Importers mainly from China have used the de minimis exemption for shipments of $800 or less to flood the U.S. market. The number of these shipments has jumped from 140 million annually to over 1 billion a year, according to a White House statement.

The action comes at a delicate moment for the world’s two largest economies. The United States has tried to lessen its reliance on Chinese products, protect emerging industries such as electric vehicles from Chinese competition and restrict China’s access to advanced computer chips. For its part, China has seen manufacturing and exports as essential for driving economic growth as it has struggled with deflation following pandemic-related lockdowns.

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Just stumpled upon that (video, 20 sec): https://infosec.exchange/@littlealex/113131659214334040

Just buy from China. It's cheap :-)

Addition:

Toxic substances found in Shein and Temu products -- (August 2024)

Women’s accessories sold by some of the world’s most popular online shopping firms contained toxic substances sometimes hundreds of times above acceptable levels, authorities in Seoul said yesterday.

Chinese giants including Shein, Temu and AliExpress have skyrocketed in popularity around the world in the past few years, offering a vast selection of trendy clothes and accessories at low prices.

Shoes from Shein were found to contain significantly high levels of phthalates — chemicals used to make plastics more flexible — with one pair 229 times above the legal limit.

“Phthalate-based plasticisers affect reproductive functions such as sperm count reduction, and can cause infertility and even premature birth,” an official from Seoul’s environmental health team told reporters.

One such chemical “is classified as a human carcinogen by the International Cancer Institute, so special care should be taken to avoid long-term contact with the human body,” the official said.

The article is longer, very interesting.

Did someone say we need supply chain transparency?

This just political theater and domestic handouts. It will increase clothing prices for workings while doing nothing to alleviate their exploitation.

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

The land of "free market" is a joke lol

You can’t freely compete with near slave labor conditions and zero environmental regulations. . .

China makes the US look like the EU in comparison for those things.

No but it does show how much capitalism relies on the absolute exploitation of the labor market and the double-standards from the US in that regard. Free market good but only when US companies are the ones fucking everyone over.

  • US companies buying cheap stuff from China and marking it up 500%: good, American values
  • China cuts the middleman and sells the same product for the same price they would sell it to the reseller: noooooo we can't compete with that, China bad, it's so unfair! Waaaaaaa

At least the EU doesn't constantly brag about muh freedom and how the free market is the best thing ever and you're a commie if you don't agree that capitalism is the best.

Didn't workers make that exact argument when their good manufacturing jobs were being sent to poorer nations? Seems hypocritical that the government allows globalism to hurt the working class as long as it benefits the rich, but suddenly globalism is bad when it hurts the profit margins of our billionaires.

Whatever we understand by a 'free market', China must really not complain about a 'non-free' market policy not in the U.S. nor in most othrr countries. That would really be hypocritical.

Bullshit! I wanna buy cheap fishing gear for a tenth of the cost at Dicks.

Better get some rods and reels en route before this goes into effect.

Just one example:

Report finds shein, temu fueled by slave labor in [China's] Xinjiang -- [archived]

The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) has released a report stating that leading fast fashion brands, Shein and Temu, are powered by "slave labor." The author of the report, Adam Savit, who is also the director of AFPI's China Policy Initiative, said that Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities are subjected to forced labor in China's Xinjiang region, benefitting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

This is just one of many similar reports. I think we should always asking ourselves when buying cheap whether there are others who who pay the price, especially in.countries like China where there is no supply chain transparency.

[Edit typo.]