U.S. Postal Service (USPS) trucks are parked at a post office on August 23, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Mario Tama | Getty Images
The U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday it will resume accepting inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong, just hours after it suspended service from those regions.
“The USPS and Customs and Border Protection are working closely together to implement an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery,” the agency wrote in a notice posted to its website.
The USPS announced late Tuesday it would stop accepting parcels from China and Hong Kong Posts “until further notice.”
The move came after President Donald Trump on Saturday imposed an additional 10% tax on Chinese goods, as part of sweeping new tariffs on the country’s top three trading partners. Trump on Monday agreed to hold off on imposing 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico for 30 days.
As part of the tariffs, Trump also closed a nearly century-old trade loophole, called “de minimis,” which allows exporters to ship packages worth less than $800 in to the U.S. duty-free. The suspension of de minimis is widely expected to impact upstart Chinese e-commerce companies Temu and Shein, which have relied on de minimis and grew in popularity in the U.S. due to their cheap clothing, furniture and electronics shipped directly from China.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has said it processed more than 1.3 billion de minimis shipments in 2024. A 2023 report from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party found that Temu and Shein are “likely responsible” for more than 30% of de minimis shipments into the U.S., and “likely nearly half” of all de minimis shipments originating from China.
The rise of e-commerce and the influx of low-value packages that occurred alongside it prompted Congress in 2016 to raise the de minimis threshold from $200 to $800.
Critics have argued the trade loophole has allowed illicit drugs, such as fentanyl, to enter the U.S. through the mail. Trade officials have also said de minimis shipments are subject to less scrutiny, raising concerns around counterfeit and unsafe goods.
