Biden's move will deliver blow to American consumers

The Biden administration on Friday issued last-minute proposed rules to curb duty-free imports under the $800 "de minimis" threshold, denying exemption for low-value shipments of goods that are subject to other punitive US tariffs.

The move marks a setback for e-commerce firms, including China-based Shein and PDD Holdings' Temu, which have exploited the de minimis threshold to ship millions of small packages a day to US customers.

In addition, small package shippers will also be required to include the 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule classifications for the package contents in order to claim the exemption.

"We cannot let Chinese-founded e-commerce platforms gain an unfair trade advantage while American businesses play by the rules," National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard said in a statement.

"Today's actions are an important step forward to level the playing field for American workers, retailers, and manufacturers and to enforce US laws that protect the health and safety of our consumers."

But these are just excuses to cover up the absurdity of the proposed rule that will leave no party unscathed if implemented, especially US consumers, as well as US e-commerce companies such as Amazon, whose imported parcels are not exempted from the rule.

Although the US represents a fast-growing foreign market, the major market for the Chinese e-commerce giants is still the Chinese mainland, where the logistics costs are much lower than in developed economies. China is not only a major manufacturing base of various kinds of consumer goods but also one of the largest e-commerce markets in the world with the largest body of e-consumers. To put the matter in perspective, the number of e-commerce parcels Jinhua city, Zhejiang province, handled in 2023 is 13.6 billion, 10 times the number of the US' imported e-commerce parcels in fiscal year 2024.

Even if the US imposes the tariffs on imported e-commerce parcels, a move that may be rejected by the new US administration after a 60-day consultation with the public, the final price of the consumer goods might still be lower than that of the retail price at brick-and-mortar malls in the US.

In effect, what the US will be taxing is not Chinese companies but US consumers.