Sept. 13 (UPI) — The Biden-Harris administration Friday acted to strengthen enforcement of laws to address abuse of the de minimis exemptions on items shipped from overseas, particularly from China.
De minimus shipments are for imported items of $800 value or less and they are not subject to duties and taxes. They enter the United States with less information than other imports, the White House said.
“The majority of shipments entering the United States claiming the de minimis exemption originate from several China-founded e-commerce platforms, putting American consumers at risk, undercutting American workers and businesses, and resulting in the importation of huge volumes of low-value products such as textiles and apparel into the U.S. market duty-free,” the White House said in a statement.
These shipments have soared over the last 10 years, from 140 million a year to more than a billion a year.
That growing volume, the White House said, makes it harder to target and block illegal or unsafe shipments.
“With today’s announcement, the Administration is using executive authority to stop the abuse of the de minimis exemption,” the White House statement said. “The Administration also calls on Congress to pass legislation this year to reform the de minimis exemption comprehensively to further protect American consumers, workers, and businesses.”
New actions to address the de minimus shipment problem include new rule-making to cut the volume of de minimis shipments and to exclude from the de minimis exemption all shipments covered by tariffs the Trade Act of 1974 or the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
The administration is also seeking new rule-making that would strengthen information collection requirements on de minimis shipments.
The White House called on Congress to take further action on these shipments by excluding “import-sensitive products,” such as textile and apparel products, from de minimis eligibility.
The Biden-Harris administration is also acting to prevent de minimis shipments from circumventing safety standards by requiring importers to file certificates of compliance at time of entry to the United States.
