Temu on Friday stated it has stopped shipments of low-cost items from China to the US as President Trump axed a commerce loophole that allowed the fast-fashion large to sidestep tariffs and customs checks.
Its US web site has shifted to supply solely what it calls “local” gadgets – or merchandise that had been shipped abroad in bulk and saved in US warehouses in a mad sprint to beat Trump’s tariffs.
“All sales in the US are now handled by locally based sellers, with orders fulfilled from within the country,” a Temu spokesperson advised The Submit in an announcement.
The tip of the de minimis exemption is a large blow to Temu, which is owned by China-based PDD Holdings, and rival Shein, each of which used the loophole to ship packages value lower than $800 into the US duty-free.
As the 2 Chinese language e-commerce giants have exploded in reputation, due to their low-cost, speedy deliveries of $5 shirts and $10 attire, so has utilization of the de minimis rule.
An enormous 1.36 billion shipments made their manner into the US below the exemption in 2024, up from 637 million simply 4 years earlier, in accordance with US Customs and Border Safety.
However Trump ended the exemption for items made in China and Hong Kong after midnight on Friday.
Temu had been regularly making ready for the tariff crunch, final week putting “local” items on the prime of the web page for US clients and saying plans to boost costs.
It additionally began slapping merchandise from abroad with particular “import charges.”
Together with dealing with new tariffs and a hefty 145% fee on China, Temu and Shein packages must undergo customs with out the exemption, which might result in delayed shipments.
Customs officers would want to randomly search a further 1 million packages per day – the quantity of things that the 2 firms despatched to the US each day, in accordance with The Wall Avenue Journal.
A few 12 months in the past, because it ready for the loophole to finish, Temu began recruiting US sellers who had been importing their very own stock from China, in accordance with the Journal.
Temu continues to be actively recruiting these US sellers, a spokesperson advised The Submit.
Temu’s merchandise had been 20% to 30% cheaper than these offered by US rivals like Amazon – however the web site is ready to lose a lot of that value benefit, particularly as its stockpile within the US dwindles.
