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The breakthrough of Donald Trump on a tariff approach for small goods could endanger the business models of Chinese E-commerce groups Shein and the topic increasing their costs, using Amazon, analysts said.
The US president has imposed an additional 10 percent of tariffs on Chinese imports over the weekend and said that the so -called rules of de minimis exclude shipments under $ 800 within duty are no longer applied.
The American Customs Administration said on Monday that his agents would now have to check and officially clean the content of each E -Stage from China. This could slow down the shipments and increase the costs for companies whose growth in the US partially encouraged effective delivery of cheap goods produced in Chinese.
“The influence will be much greater than only. Several packages,” said Henry Gao, a professor of rights at Singapore University. “Everything from China will stay for that.”
Shein And the rival topic, which sells clothing and other items at low prices, has grown suddenly from the Pandemia Coid-19 and were probably responsible for more than 30 percent of the shipments without tariffs that reached the US in accordance with the regulations, the Congress report in 2023. is. According to US customs, about 4mn de minimis is processed each day.
More than half of the shipment de minimis in the US originates from China. Customs and USA border protection data showed that the average value of orders was about $ 50, with a total of $ 47.8 billion acceptable goods delivered in the first three quarters of 2024.
Trump’s move comes just when Chinese companies face a return reaction in the Western markets, and competitors say they are unjustly underestimated by regulators like the EU, which they claim to deliver underwater goods.
It is also bad news for Chinese suppliers on platforms such as Shein and the topic, which have become key customers and helped make up for the order fall after their previous sales model to large western customers and trade firms, are affected by the imposition of tariffs.
The heads of Shein, which aimed at London list With an estimate of around £ 50 billion, they claimed that his products would remain competitive because of his strategy for adjusting the amount of production based on demand.
The abolition of the exemption followed because Trump also announced new tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico. They were wait After Trump spoke with the leaders of the countries. Cinema tariffs came into force on Tuesday, and Trump was supposed to talk to Chinese leader XI Jinping in the coming days.
The American Amazon -Tergovin Company sought to counter the threat represented by cheap Chinese suppliers by launching the “Haul” brand, which offers products for less than $ 20 with time of shipping between one and two weeks. Now they may be able to avoid “the race to the bottom,” analysts said.
“Closing a hole is affordable for Amazon,” said Andy Wu, an associate professor at Harvard, adding that the company “preferably buy a group..
The rules of the De minimis are designed to reduce the burden of customs officers by removing the need to see any small value and allowed us to companies and consumers to avoid passing a long customs process when buying less valuable items from abroad.
But they increasingly faced opposition, which prompted former US President Joe Biden to propose the rules of the rules For Chinese imports at the end of last year, while the EU proposed exemption to abolish on packages worth less than 150 euros, the Financial Times reported.
Andrew Wilson, Deputy General Secretary for Politics at the International Chamber of Commerce, said the removal of Prague De Minimis is more likely to harm smaller companies, not companies like Shein and the topic.
“They [Shein and Temu] He will accelerate his moves to what is basically the Amazon warehouse model in the US. . . There may be some impact on profitability and costs that can be passed [on to] consumers, but it will be large enough and will have enough resources for [mitigate it]. ”
The topic, which is owned PDD Group, started last year recruiting Chinese suppliers holding goods in warehouses in the US and ask from existing suppliers to take on their own shipping, storage and delivery to Last Mile. Shein expanded his logistical network in the United States -Ii sought to diversify his production in Brazil, Turkey and India.
Sheng Lu, a professor at the University of Delaware, said that politics uncertainty is a bigger problem than tariffs because large traders could “develop their business model”.
“Larger tariffs will increase original or operational costs,” he said. “But more care is uncertainty. At this point you can really feel it.”
Additional reporting Eleanor Olcott and Laura Onita
