Donald Trump has signed an executive order ending his country’s ‘de minimis’ regime for low-value imports, meaning they will now face duties when entering the US.
The order will come into effect on 29 August, ending the duty-free regime for imports of values lower than $800. The US administration argued that it had been used to “evade tariffs and funnel deadly synthetic opioids” into the country. The order brings forward plans to end the exemption by almost two years.
Many SMEs and e-commerce sellers now face immediate new costs when trading into the US. This shift creates serious problems for supply chain planning and removes one of the few simple, low-friction routes into the American consumer market.