In the midst of a constant flow of new commercial policies in the first three months of President Trump in office, there is one that Andy Musliner, owner of a small toy business in Maryland, can support.
That is the end of a tax -free escape for cheap products from China.
Mr. Trump eliminated this month a provision that had allowed imported packages to the United States from continental China or Hong Kong to avoid rates and other customs requirements if they had a value below $ 800. The lagoofolio previously faced Fentanyl from the legislators of the legislators and setback of the Biden administration, partly on the concern that it was allowing Fentanyl Towards the United States.
It allowed fast fashion giants Shein and Temu, who depend on Chinese suppliers, gain a significant market share in recent years by evading tariffs on low -value products sent directly to consumers.
Mr. Musliner’s company, Question Toys, has been crushed by the emergence of these Chinese electronic commerce giants, he said. His business, in Crofton, Maryland, sells road tape for toy car, which is, as it seems, a tape that looks like a road, all of which is made in China in China and is sent in containers to the United States. His business was booming, with a two -digit sales growth several years in a row. That came to an end in 2023, when Temu’s popularity in the United States exploded after the company’s high profile super bowl commercial.
Mr. Musline’s sales collapsed suddenly. American clients began to buy imitations of Temus of a roll of similar road tape for $ 1.50, much cheaper than their product of $ 9. In a matter of months, their income fell 30 percent.
“No amount of cost cutting will take me at that price,” he said. “I manufacture in China, import my products, I sell them on Amazon for a price that takes into account all those costs.”
Finish the lagoon, known as minimism, for China’s assets, could level the playing field for small consumption brands that say they are being undermined by Temu and Shein’s business model. Musliner said he was encouraged when the Biden administration proposes reforms to the disposal last year and even more pleased when the Trump administration moved to finish it completely.
But the owners of small businesses who could otherwise have reasons to celebrate now face a dilemma. Any potential benefit to discard the shipping solution is being surpassed by Trump’s very high tariffs on Chinese products, offering little imeded relief. Trump has imposed a tariff rate of at least 145 percent in China imports and a baseline of 10 percent of the types of taxes of other commercial partners.
“If we are privileged enough to start getting more businesses due to lower competition, then we will have to manufacture more to meet that need,” Musliner said. “But guess what. That will cost more money, what we earn.”
The senior Trump administration officials will meet with their Chinese counterparts in Switzerland this weekend, in what will be their first formal meeting on trade since Trump imposed tariffs at triple digits levels last month. On Friday, Mr. Trump suggested that he was open to leave the rates to 80 percent, although only that level could be too high for many importers, particularly small businesses.
Jyoti Jaiswal, who lives in Syosset, New York, designs handmade crafts and clothing made mainly in India, which he sells through his family business, WHOUTRA. She said that the competition of companies that imported goods economically to the United States from China had been a challenge, which forced her to suspend certain products. Shein and Temu, in recent years, have gathered the sales of sheets, scarves and jewels, he said. Customers have opted for similar products, despite the lower quality, which are offered to a fraction of their prices.
With the mastery of the thesis fashion retailers in mind, Mrs. Jaiswal described the end of the minimis for China a “fair trade policy.”
But the set of other tariffs of Mr. Trump is also occupying the center of the stage for her. A 10 percent tariff on India imports is already in force, and the threat of a higher tax in 26 percent in the country is still coming, once Trump’s 90 -day break over reciprocal tariffs ends in July. Mrs. Jaiswal has stopped some commercial activities, including an upcoming introduction of a new collection of scarves and travel products.
“It is very difficult for us to plan things and say what the price of these products would be, if we could market them or not,” said Jaiswal.
Thors Day, Trump announced a framework for a commercial agreement with Great Britain, but those with India and other countries have not yet negotiated or completed.
Shortly after Mr. Trump’s order closed Minimis’s exemption for the purpose of China tok, Temu said he had stopped sending China products directly to customers in the United States. On the other hand, all their US orders will be sent from local stores in the United States, indicating a fundamental change in response to new taxes on low -value Chinese imports.
Not all small companies can win from the end of the shipping escape. And unlike the main retailers like Temu, many cannot quickly access their supply chains.
John Arensmeyer, executive director of most small businesses, a defense group, framed changes in the disposition as part of a broader frustration among small businesses about Trump administration tariffs. Some business owners, which have been based on tax free exemption to import small products that sell in the United States, or product components, have lamented new taxes on low value imports, he added.
For companies that depend on minimis, the challenge is amplified by the rates of 145 percent of Trump in Chinese products, which now apply to previously free imports.
“Now, suddenly, losing that is an equally greater impact than if they had it last year,” said Arensmeyer.
Small electronic commerce suppliers sell products in online popular markets are preparing to support the worst part of the consequences, in the United States and abroad. Cori Kyle, who lives near Vancouver, British Columbia, and whose Etsy jewelry business is his main source of income, he said he was prepared to stop all sales to US customers. It is likely that Minimis closure makes your items too successful for Americans to buy them; Since the original closers come from China, they are now subject to high rates. Most of its sales can soon be cut.
Even so, for American and pop retailers who have seen their sales abolled by the incursions of Shein and Temu in the US market, policy change has the potential to be a boost.
For Mike Gray, the success of the competition with Chinese platforms of electronic commerce began to appear about five years ago in the “decimation” or its electric bicycle business. Mr. Gray has Sourland Cycles, a bicycle store in Hopewell, NJ, and 20 percent of its sales used to come from electronic bicycles. But as Shein and Temu grew in popularity, customers began to gravitate towards cheap electronic bicycles to the United States through De Minimis. Its electronic bicycle sales fell to approximately 5 percent of its general sales.
“He took a large part,” Gray said. Many of the cheapest electronic bicycles experience brake malfunction and lack parts, he said, but low prices have attracted customers to electronic commerce sites.
Gray said he expected the closure of Trump’s administrations or minimis for China. He called the change a “silver lining” that could live the playing field, at least slightly.
But for now, Mr. Gray focuses directly on discovering how to set the price of their bicycles as manufacturers begin to increase their prices due to different quantities, cites the increases of costs driven by the rate. Ibis, a bicycle manufacturer, added a tariff rate of 5 percent, or more than $ 120, to one of its mountain bicycles last week, Gray said.
“It’s hard to put that in perspective and think about it,” he said about the effect of minimis change, “when you have all this uncertainty about prices.”
