- The United States Postal Service said it will stop accepting parcels from China and Hong Kong.
- USPS said in a statement that the suspension would be effective starting Tuesday.
- Only parcels are affected for now, as the restriction doesn’t apply to letters and flat mail.
The US Postal Service said on Tuesday that it is temporarily suspending inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong until further notice.
USPS said in a statement on its website that the suspension would take effect immediately, though it would not apply to letters and flat mail from China and Hong Kong.
The suspension comes just hours after the US imposed a new 10% tariff on all goods imported from China. On Tuesday, China responded with a 10% tariff on crude oil and agricultural machinery and a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas.
When contacted for comment, USPS representatives directed Business Insider to the statement on the USPS website.
When President Donald Trump first announced the tariffs in an executive order he signed on Saturday, the order specified that the de minimis exemption for small packages would no longer apply.
That exemption was beneficial for Chinese e-commerce retailers like Shein and Temu, which could ship packages worth less than $800 directly to US customers without incurring tariffs.
“This is particularly relevant for Chinese e-commerce exporters, as shipments from the mainland and Hong Kong accounted for around 67% of all US-bound packages under the provision between 2018-2021,” Louise Loo, the lead economist for Greater China at Oxford Economics, wrote in a note on Tuesday.
According to the US Customs and Border Protection, the total volume of de minimis shipments into the US was over 1.36 billion in the 2024 fiscal year.
The US Customs and Border Protection said in a statement on January 17 that shipments into the US under the exemption have gone up by more than 600% over the last 10 years.
“This exponential increase has created challenges for CBP’s effective enforcement of US trade laws, health and safety requirements, intellectual property rights, and consumer protection rules,” the statement added.
