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A notice to customers dazzled by the low-priced products on Chinese shopping apps: The days of getting trendy clothing, tools, and gag gifts that cost less than lunch delivered to your door in 10 days are probably numbered. President Donald Trump is ending a little-known but widely used exemption that has allowed as many as 4 million low-value parcelsmost of them originating in Chinato arrive in the U.S. every day tax-free. An executive order the president signed Wednesday will eliminate the de minimis provision for goods from China and Hong Kong on May 2. The tax exemption, which applies to packages valued at $800 or less, has helped China-founded e-commerce companies like Shein and Temu thrive while cutting into the U.S. retail market. Shoppers had a full array of product and options of timing, Marshal Cohen, chief retail adviser at market research firm Circana, said. Now theyre going to have a limited array of options and timing: So you can still buy this product, but you may have to wait three or four weeks. U.S. politicians, law enforcement agencies, and business groups have described the long-standing policy as a trade loophole that gave inexpensive Chinese goods an advantage and served as a portal for illicit drugs and counterfeits to enter the country. The sweeping tariffs Trump announced on Wednesday also aim to end the duty-free exception for all imported goods worth less than $800, but only when the U.S. government has the personnel in place to process parcels from every country. What will be the effect on prices and shipping times? A White House fact sheet said small packages of Chinese products sent through the international postal network will be subject to a duty rate of either 30% of their value or $25 per item, an amount that will increase to $50 per item after June 1. Commercial carriers such as FedEx and UPS will be required to report shipment details and remit the appropriate duties to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to the White House. After Trump’s latest round of tariffs, the tariff rate for Chinese products will be at least 54%. Supporters of the de minimis exception have argued that its elimination would drive up costs and hurt low-income consumers and small businesses. The tariff costs threaten to deal a blow to the U.S. operations of companies like Shein and Temu, which rapidly expanded in the U.S. using the de minimis provision to deliver ultra-cheap fast-fashion items from China. However, it’s unclear what impact the loss of the tax exemption will have on the two online retailers, as well as on American companies like Amazon and Walmart, whose platforms include virtual marketplaces where international sellers offer products. Shein and Temu already have been building warehouses in the U.S. so they could get orders to U.S. shoppers more quickly. Shein recently opened a fulfillment and logistics hub in the Seattle area. Neither company could be reached for comment Thursday. Ram Ben Tzion, chief executive officer of the digital vetting platform Publican, said he expected the companies to be forced to rethink their business strategy and possibly explore opting out of the U.S. market. In an emailed statement to AP, FedEx said it would support its customers to adapt to the new regulatory requirements and said it would be important for shippers to have paperwork completed correctly ahead of pick-up for shipments to move smoothly. Hilton Beckham, an assistant commissioner of the U.S. CBP, said the federal agency was ready to implement the latest tariffs. Our automated systems are fully updated to capture, assess, and administer all new duties, and clear guidance will be provided to support uniform enforcement across the nation, Beckham said. Ben Tzion, of Publican, said he would highly doubt the U.S. government was ready to process the huge number of low-value shipments to be taxed starting next month. The Hong Kong government said the Hongkong Post would temporarily maintain postal services to the U.S through May 2 but will not collect any so-called tariffs on behalf of the U.S. authorities. What is the de minimis provision? Introduced in 1938, the de minimis exception was intended to facilitate the flow of small packages valued at no more than $5, the equivalent of about $109 today. The threshold increased to $200 in 1994 and $800 in 2016. But the rapid rise of cross-border e-commerce, driven by China, has challenged the intent of the decades-old customs exception rule. Chinese exports of low-value packages soared to $66 billion in 2023, up from $5.3 billion in 2018, according to a February report by the Congressional Research Service. And the U.S. market has been a major destination. The Chinese government, which sees cross-border e-commerce as a critical part of its foreign trade, has introduced favorable policies, including financial support and infrastructure building, to foster its growth. Former President Joe Biden proposed a rule last year that said foreign companies cant avoid tariffs simply by shipping goods that they claim to be worth $800 or less. Trump tried in February to end the exception but his initial order was called off within days when it appeared the U.S. was not prepared to process and collect tariffs on the millions of parcels. U.S. Representative Rosa L. DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut, said she was pleased Trump acted a second time to eliminate the rule. For too long, this customs loophole has let foreign exporters flood our market with cheap goods and helped drug traffickers move fentanyl past our bordersresulting in factory closures, job losses, and deaths, DeLauro said. An explosion of cheap goods In 2023, for the first time, more than 1 billion such packages came through U.S. customs, up from 134 million in 2015. By the end of last year, CBP said it was processing about 4 million small shipments a day. The cheap prices and increasing popularity of Shein and Temu squeezed fast-fashion retailers like Forever 21 and H&M. Forever 21 blamed the tax exemption in part for its decision to file for bankruptcy last month and close its U.S. stores. We have been unable to find a sustainable path forward, given competition from foreign fast-fashion companies, which have been able to take advantage of the de minimis exemption to undercut our brand on pricing and margin, CFO Brad Sell said in a statement. Meanwhile, Amazon launched late last year a low-cost online storefront featuring electronics, apparel, and other products priced under $20, in an apparent effort to compete with Temu and Shein. Amazon shipped the products to U.S. customers from a warehouse it operates in China, according to documentation the company provided to sellers. By Anne D’Innocenzio and Didi Tang
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Ever since the United States governments unfulfilled promise of giving every newly freed Black American 40 acres and a mule after the Civil War, descendants of the enslaved have repeatedly proposed the idea of redistributing land to redress the nations legacies of slavery. Land-based reparations are also a form of redress for the territorial theft of colonialism. Around the world, politicians tend to dismiss calls for such initiatives as wishful thinking at best and discrimination at worst. Or else, they are swatted away as too complex to implement, legally and practically. Yet our research shows a growing number of municipalities and communities across the U.S. are quietly taking up the charge. We are geographers who since 2021 have been documenting and analyzing more than 225 examples of reparative programs underway in U.S. cities, states, and regions. Notably, over half of them center land return. These efforts show how working locally to grapple with the complexity of land-based reparations is a necessary and feasible part of the nations healing process. The Evanston effect Evanston, Illinois, launched the countrys first publicly funded housing reparations program in 2019. In its current form, Evanstons Restorative Housing Program has provided disbursements to more than 200 recipients. All are Black residents of Evanston or direct descendants of residents who experienced housing discrimination between 1919 and 1969. Benefits include down payment assistance and mortgage assistance as well as funds to make home repairs and improvements. The goal is to redress the harm Evanston caused during these 50-plus years of racial discrimination in public schools, hospitals, buses, and segregated residential zoning. During that same period, banks in Evanston, as in other U.S. cities, also refused to give Black residents mortgages, credit, or insurance for homes in white neighborhoods. I always said you can keep the mule, program beneficiary Ron Butler told NBC News in 2024. Give me the 40 acres in Evanston. Reparations that focus on land, housing, and property are about more than making amends for centuries of racial discrimination. They help to restore peoples self-determination, autonomy, and freedom. Following Evanstons lead, in 2021 a group of 11 U.S. mayors created Mayors Organized for Reparations and Equity, a coalition committed to developing pilot reparations programs. Members include Los Angeles; Austin; and Asheville, North Carolina. The cities act as sites to generate ideas about how reparation initiatives could be scaled up nationally. Each mayor is advised by committees made up of representatives from local Black-led organizations. Colonial reparations In recent years the city of Eureka, in Northern California, has been returning some territory to its Native inhabitants. Indigenous people often call this process rematriation; its part of a broader effort to restore sovereignty and sacred relationships to their ancestral lands. In 2019, after years of petitioning by members of the Wiyot people, the Eureka City Council returned 200 acres of Tuluwat Island, a 280-acre island in Humboldt Bay where European settlers in 1860 massacred about 200 Wiyot women and children. Its a sovereignty issue, a self-governance issue, said Wiyot tribal administrator Michelle Vassel in a November 2023 radio interview. Minneapoliss sale of city lots to the Red Lake Nation for $1 in 2023 is another example of how city governments can make amends for past Indigenous displacement and removal. Plans to develop the low-cost lots include a cultural center for Red Lake people, an opioid treatment center, and potentially housing. The Red Lake Reservation once included 3.3 million acres. The 1889 Dawes Act forced the Red Lake Band to cede all but 300,000 acres. The federal government later returned some land, but today the reservation is still only a quarter of its original size. Reparations are critical to racial equity These initiatives may sound like a drop in the bucket considering the vast harms committed over centuries of slavery and colonization. Yet they prove that governments can craft targeted, achievable, and meaningful policies to address colonialism and enslavement. They also tackle a frequent critique of reparations, which is that slavery and colonialism happened centuries ago. Yet their effects continue to harm Black and Native communities generations later. Today, white households in the U.S. have roughly nine times the wealth of typical Black households. One explanation for this racial disparity is that Black households earn 20% less than their white counterparts. But a more meaningful driver is what scholars call the intergenerational transmission chainthat is, the role that gifts and inheritance play in wealth generation. Thats why reparations, with both land and money, are so critical to creating racial equity. Still, reparations programs do raise a host of complex, practical questions. Which kinds of historic racial injustice take priority, and what form should repair take? Who qualifies for the benefits? The state of Minnesota transferred Upper Sioux Agency State Park back to the Dakota people in 2023 in an effort to make amends for a war and historic slaughter there. [Photo: Tony Webster/Flickr] Community-based land reparations Reparations dont have to come from the government. In recent years, more than a hundred community-based organizations across the U.S. have introduced their own initiatives to redistribute land and wealth to make amends for past injustices. Makoce Ikikcupi, in the Minnesota River Valley, is a community reparations program led by Dakota peoples. Since 2009, the group has been collecting funds to buy back portions of the Dakota homeland. One revenue source is voluntary contributions from descendants of Europeans who colonized that land. This fundraising strategy is sometimes called real rent or back rent. The group purchased its first 21-acre parcel of land in 2019, where it is building traditional earth lodges, with plans for several self-sustaining Dakota villages. We consider our donation . . . back rent, reads the testimony of one monthly contributor, Josina Manu, on the groups web page. He calls the reclamation of Dakota land a vital step towards creating a just world. Fair compensation for eminent domain Many communities are also working together to repair the legacies of anti-Black racism. In the 1960s, the city of Athens, Georgia, used eminent domain to build dormitories for the University of Georgia. Paying below market value, it demolished an entire Black neighborhood called Linnentown. In early 2021, following petitioning from former Linnentown residents whod lost their homes, the City Council unanimously passed a resolution recognizing their neighborhoods destruction as an act of institutionalized white racism and terrorism resulting in intergenerational Black poverty. Because Georgia law prohibits government entities from making payments to individuals, a community group stepped in to organize compensation. The result is Athens Reparations Action, a coalition of churches and community organizations. Formed in 2021, it had raised $120,000 by 2024 to distribute among the 10 families who are Linnentown survivors and descendants. Backlash Our research also tracks legal challenges to the reparations initiatives we are studying. Conservative groups such as Judicial Watch have filed dozens of retaliatory lawsuits against several of them, including Evanstons Restorative Housing Program. A 2024 class action complaint alleges that the program discriminates based on race, violating the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. These legal challenges are part of the broader front of conservative-led assaults on voting rights, affirmative action, and critical race theory. Like reparations, all are efforts to grapple with the U.S.s historical mistreatment of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color. Attacking those initiatives is an attempt to preserve what scholar Laura Pulido calls white innocence. We expect more of them under a second Trump term already defined by its assault on antidiscrimination policies and programs. So far, none of President Donald Trumps decrees has targeted reparations specifically. For now, reparations are still legal and constitutionaland possible. Sara Safransky is an associate professor at the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University. Elsa Noterman is a senior lecturer in human geography at Queen Mary University of London. Madeleine Lewis is a doctoral student at the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The breakout star of this season of The White Lotus? Aimee Lou Woodand her distinctive real-life smile. I mean, I cant believe the impact my teeth are having, the English actress told Jonathan Ross last month on Ross’s eponymous British chat show. I hope that people dont start, like, filing their teeth so they have gaps. Too late. Unfortunately, Wood may have unintentionally reignited a troubling DIY dentistry trend. On TikTok, users are once again taking nail files to their own teeth, with hashtags like #teethfiling and #teethfile, racking up more than 130 posts, according to Screenshot Media. @nikkysixxbxtch Couldve ended very poorly original sound – elaina While Woods smile may be the most recent inspiration, this isnt a new phenomenon. Teeth-filing videos have been circulating online for years. Im going to file my teeth down with a nail file because they are not perfect, one TikTok user said in a since-deleted video posted back in 2020. I have some ridges, and were ballin on a budget. But what might seem like a quick cosmetic fix can cause lasting harm. When you file your nails, your nails grow back, but your teeth dont, Detroit-based dentist Zainab Mackie told the Washington Posts Allyson Chiu, who originally reported on the trend. That outer enamel layer doesnt grow back. ... Once its gone, thats it. Dental professionals on TikTok have long warned users to step away from the emery boards and see a professional instead. Dont get mad at me when your teeth are more sensitive than a two-year-old crying over spilled milk, because I aint going to help you, orthodontist Benjamin Winters (aka the Bentist) said to his 5.5 million TikTok followers in a video that went viral. @thebentist @cheneltiara why you do dis to me! PSA: I dont recommend doing this have your dentist check to make sure its safe first! #teeth #braces original sound – The Bentist / Orthodontist Wood herself has opened up about her struggle to embrace her teeth when she was growing up. The Americans cant believe [my teeth], but theyre all being lovely, she said on the popular chat show. It feels so lovely. A real full-circle moment after being bullied for my teeth, forever. Maybe theres a lesson in that.
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