Consumers going to purchase items shipped from China are discovering the first immediate impact of President Donald Trump's new tariffs: fees of "up to $50 or more" on top of their usual shipping costs, reported Wired.
The key sticking point is that the policy change eliminates a longtime "de minimis" exemption from trade duties for parcels worth less than $800, suddenly causing people to owe fees they've never paid.
Beginning Tuesday, "US shoppers have reported receiving notices from UPS and DHL stating they owed between $20 to over $50. Some small business owners, meanwhile, say the new fees are forcing them to temporarily halt sending orders to the US completely," reported Zeyi Yang. "US customers who placed orders on shopping websites like the popular Chinese fast-fashion platform Shein have been particularly impacted, even if they made their purchases long before the tariffs were announced. They are now forced to either pay the hefty fees — in some cases, more than the cost of the actual items — or have their packages sent back."
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Oftentimes, these fees outright hold up the packages from even being delivered.
For example, according to the report, "Chardonnay Love, an artist from Pennsylvania, says she received a text message from DHL on Tuesday explaining she needed to pay $26.20 in import duties to get a Shein order that already cost her $267.14." Meanwhile, Leslie Brown, who owns a Canadian clothing reseller that does business through eBay and Poshmark, said “I am now stuck with $30,000 of items I can’t move across the border, the lifeblood of my business.”
New tariffs taking effect this week were also to apply to Mexico and Canada; however, at the last minute, the leaders of both countries managed to negotiate a one-month delay with Trump, by agreeing to border security measures they were already doing anyway. The tariffs on China, however, are in full force, with significant impacts on trade.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Postal Service suspended all shipments of parcels from China altogether, although this suspension was lifted on Wednesday morning.