An Americanist
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An Americanist
The De Minimis Loophole: How Trump's New Tariffs Target Temu and Shein
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Liberty Line each week on Sunday, look for topics on my X file @americanistblog and submit your 1-3 audio opinions to anamericanistblog@gmail.com and you'll be featured on the podcast.
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Hello everyone, good morning, happy Thursday. Welcome to an Americanist Daily Podcast. Monday through Friday. Okay, I know I need a new intro and I will work on that sometime this week.
Speaker 1:All right, first we're going to talk about one story, one story only. Then we're going to get to the question of the day, which is related, sort of, to the story. All right, you know about the big, bad tariffs that Donald Trump, mr President, has put in place. Now, congress, I think it was, or Senate, it must have been Senate, because Mitchell Mitch McConnell voted against it. Some Canada thing, I don't know, they voted down the tariffs for Canada. All right, you're going to hear about that later today. But this story I want to talk about because it focuses in a little bit more about some of this one particular tariff All right, trump imposes new tariffs on cheap Chinese goods sold by companies like Timu and Sheen.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you've seen it out there. If you're on facebook and you're scrolling, you've seen these companies advertised. President trump signed on exec. I did not, not. Did not know what sheen was. A co-worker had to tell me what sheen was. It's just, you know, it's like timo everything cheap coming from china, from coming from china. All right, but here, listen to this.
Speaker 1:President trump signed an executive order wed Wednesday closing a trade loophole on cheap goods from China that were previously exempt from tariffs. Trump argued that the so-called de minimis exception allowed shippers from the People's Republic and Hong Kong to hide illicit substances in packaging and products. It goes on. These shippers often avoid detection due to administration of the de minimis exemption. The president wrote claiming that duty-free exports from China play a significant role in the synthetic opioid opioid crisis in the United States. So order a pair of cheap ass shoes from sheen or timu and they might be coming with the fentanyl and the opioids, just to let you know. Okay, um, all right, let's see. We're going to read on.
Speaker 1:Packages subject to the de minimis treatment are valued at less than $800. This is a lot of stuff here. Online Chinese retailers such as Timu and Sheen have used the loophole to sell ultra low cost items to the US consumers and could be hit hard by new tariffs. Now I've seen I've seen reels on Facebook and and I don't have TikTok yet, but I'm about to get it, I think Maybe We'll see and I see these women talking about look what I got from Timu, what I bought and what I really got and they're just making money off of this. In february, trump briefly suspended the loophole before restoring the exemption to give the commerce of department more time to develop a plan on how to collect the new revenues. Okay, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:The new tariffs are on de minimis goods will be imposed in lieu of any other duties that shipments would otherwise be subject to, such as Trump's 20% levy on Chinese exports. Starting May 2nd, shipments under $800 will be subject to a valerian duty of 30%. Okay, blah, blah, blah, you don't care about that. Where was I? Let's see, let's see.
Speaker 1:Okay, the de minimis exception, where this came from, was initially implemented to allow tourists to bring souvenirs back home from abroad. Duty and hassle-free. You know, you've seen this. When you go on a cruise, you go overseas, you want a souvenir, you bring it. Ship it back, you want to bring it back. This is what that is for.
Speaker 1:Uh, the cato institute, a libertarian think tank, argues that that the de minimis exemption serves as a crucial trade facilitation tool that particularly benefits low-income consumers. So I think this think tank is against it. I'm not sure against the tariff. The think tank points to research papers showing that the poorest zip codes in America receive significantly more de minimis shipments, particularly from China, than the richest zip codes. Well, I mean, if you don't make a lot of money, of course you're going to buy cheap shit, right, all right? So the president signed the executive order. Okay, that's the end of the story. I don't know if you're interested in that of order. Okay, that's the end of the story. I don't know if you're interested in that.
Speaker 1:But my question of the day, I mean, what do you think about this whole tariff thing? Is kind of confusing to me. I need some more clarification. You know, yesterday was supposed to be Liberation Day with this whole tariff thing. He did a whole presentation in the Rose Garden. I kind of watched. It kind of was on in the background. I was trying to. I was doing other stuff online. I wasn't paying full attention. Maybe I should have. Maybe I'll hear more about it today. Tell me where I can go to read more about the tariffs and what this really means for America.
Speaker 1:But my question of the day and then we're going to call it is what is the strangest thing you've ordered online Keep it clean the strangest thing that I think I've ordered? I've always ordered from Amazon. Sometimes I order direct from the company, like if I'm doing makeup or something like that. Maybe I know from Besame Cosmetics, I'll order straight from them. Takes a little bit longer to get here, but it's so worth it. It is made in the USA, by the way, besame Cosmetics, I ordered their Ella Fitzgerald 4 Quad Eyeshadow Lovely, and I get all my lipsticks from there too. Most of my red lipsticks, anyway, are from Besame.
Speaker 1:All right, moving on, question of the day what is the strangest thing you've ordered? The strangest thing I probably ordered was from Amazon and it was like a costume wig. At one point or another I was going to create an alternative anonymous ex account and I was actually going to use my picture. But I was going to dress myself up in this crazy wig and crazy makeup and stuff and try to pixelate it a little bit, but I never did do it. I ordered the wig. It's sitting underneath my bed. I should bring it out sometime and do it. Maybe show it to you. You I'll do it sometime when I'm bored, or whatever. All right, so, oh, another thing, real quick.
Speaker 1:I'm going to start a new segment on here, uh, the Americanist podcast. Probably once a week I'm going to put out a topic and I want you, the listeners, to send in your thoughts and remarks, record one to three minutes of the topic, of your opinion of it. Send it to me via email or I'll put out a link. You can DM me. I'll give you the link to share a shared file and then I will put it all together in a weekly episode and put it out there. We're going to call it the Liberty Line. So when you see the Liberty Line is open, send it in the topic this week. That I want is what is your favorite US president from history, or, and why? Or what's your favorite US American history moment? All right, gotta go. Thanks for listening. Love y'all, bye.
