“Made in China” labels on packages at a fulfillment center in New Jersey. (Bing Guan/Bloomberg)
Chinese companies cut back on the small packages they shipped to the U.S. 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 U.S. fell by almost 5% from a year earlier, according to data released March 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 $800 to enter the U.S. tariff-free.
The slump was likely even more pronounced when adjusted for the effect of an earlier-than-usual Lunar New Year holiday, which fell entirely in February 2024.
A Shein pop-up store inside a Forever 21 store in New York. Low-cost shopping apps like Shein and Temu would be affected by an end to the ‘de minimis’ loophole. (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg)
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 $3.5 billion worth of parcels shipped to the U.S. from China, just 2.3% higher than the same period in 2024.
The trade in small packages has boomed in recent years as U.S. 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 U.S. government will cancel the so-called “de minimis” exemption eventually, once authorities develop the capacity to process the almost 4 million packages that arrived every day last year.
In total, an estimated 1.4 billion of de minimis shipments entered the U.S. last year, with many likely coming from China.
China officially reported about $23 billion of such exports last year — half the amount estimated by economists at Nomura Holdings Inc.
While de minimis shipments led to significant savings on some consumer goods for U.S. buyers, JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimates the tariff exemption also likely resulted in up to $7 billion in uncollected duties.
