Biden attacks China’s Temu and Shein with changes to import duty exemption for low-value products

White House announces new measures – aimed mainly at Chinese e-commerce platforms like Temu and Shein – to restrict the scope of low-value imports eligible for duty and tax exemptions, and formally approved significant tariff increases on billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports.

Daleep Singh, deputy national security adviser for international economics, said the e-commerce measures respond to the increasingly controversial de minimis rule, which exempts shipments worth less than $800 from import duties, taxes and stringent inspections.

During Thursday’s briefing, Singh said the White House action “is intended to remove de minimis eligibility for products subject to trade enforcement actions under Section 301, Section 201 and Section 232, which is intended to standardize our U.S. trade laws.”

“Because about 70 percent of China’s textile and apparel imports are subject to Section 301 tariffs, this step will drastically reduce the number of shipments entering under the de minimis exemption,” he said, noting that the intention was to “reduce abuse and overuse of the de minimis exemption.”

In 2018, then-President Donald Trump imposed tariffs of 7 to 25 percent on $300 billion of Chinese imports under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, citing “unfair” trade practices.