Sure, the national hardship of price increases tied to tariffs is only getting started. But my personal journey of stressing about a recent Temu order? Phew, that’s done! Our nation can breathe a sigh of relief.
To catch you up on my harrowing personal drama: The night before “Liberation Day,” I placed a farewell order from Temu, the e-commerce marketplace that ships orders (mostly) directly from China.
Aside from enacting tariffs, Donald Trump has also said he would end the de minimis loophole that has allowed Temu, Shein, and others to ship orders with values under $800 directly from China to customers in the US without paying duty fees. That loophole has been the underpinning of Temu and Shein’s astonishingly low prices on clothing and knickknacks.
The details about closing the de minimis rule have been a little unclear at times — not unlike the back-and-forth with Trump’s tariffs. Initially, it was unclear when the yanking of the de minimis exception would go into effect, and I worried that when my order arrived, I might get slapped with a hefty $75 fee.
Now it seems that the de minimis loophole closes on May 2, which means that a few last shipments — including my own — have been able to sneak in under the wire.
I got three bubble machine/bubble wand items.
Temu and Shein have both put up statements on their websites addressing customers to warn them that price increases will hit soon.
What’s kind of odd is that both sites, which are owned by different parent companies, have the same message, worded exactly the same — only the company name at the end is different. (Temu and Shein did not immediately reply to a question about how they ended up with the same statement.) The statements say:
Dear Customers,
