WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has paused imposing tariffs on small-value packages arriving from China.
The move is to apparently to give federal agencies time to sort out how to process millions of such shipments that have come through the U.S. border every day without paying taxes.
EXECUTIVE ORDER
The executive order, dated Wednesday, didn’t say when the pause would end but said it would cease when the Department of Commerce could put in place “adequate systems” to “fully and expediently process and collect tariff revenue.”
“It’s just showing we’re moving fast, and the implications are not fully understood when some of these regulations are put in place,” said John Lash, group vice president of product strategy at the supply chain platform e2open, pointing out that Trump’s order affected huge numbers of small packages, many in transit.
“The volumes are absolutely incredible,” Lash said. “And all of a sudden, they go from not requiring filing (for tariffs) … to actually requiring full filing, which is a complicated task.”
Ending tariff exemptions on low-cost packages from China has broad bipartisan support in Washington, and Trump pulled the plug when he raised tariffs on Chinese goods by 10% earlier this week. Goods sent through duty-free packages became subject not only to existing tariffs — 25% for many Chinese products — but also the new 10%.
The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business. The Trucker Media Group is subscriber of The Associated Press has been granted the license to use this content on TheTrucker.com and The Trucker newspaper in accordance with its Content License Agreement with The Associated Press.
