“ I panicked and spent $ 400 online ”

Earlier this year, Deborah Grushkin, an enthusiastic online buyer from New Jersey, “Freaked Out”.

US President Donald Trump had signed a prescription to stop allowing China packages worth $ 800 (£ 601) to enter the country without import tax and customs procedures.

It was a decision, supported by traditional retailers, who were discussed in Washington for years in the middle of an explosion of sliding packages in the United States under the limit.

Many countries, including the United Kingdom, envisage similar measures, partly stimulated by the rapid ascent of Shein and Temu.

But in the United States, Trump’s decision to put an end to sculpture while ordering a blitz new commercial prices, including at least 145% import taxes on goods from China, delivered a two punch that left companies and buyers in shock.

The brands of electronic commerce based in the United States, which have been created around the system, warn that the changes could trigger failures of small businesses, while buyers like Deborah Brace for price increases and shortages.

With the deadline of May 2, last month, last month, rushed into some $ 400 of Shein articles-including stickers, t-shirts, fleece sweaters, mother’s gifts and 20 liquid eyeliner tubes.

“I had the impression that it was perhaps my last kind of Hourra,” she said.

The use of rules known as “minimis”, which allow low value packages to avoid prices, customs inspections and other regulatory requirements, has increased in the last decade.

The adoption accelerated during Trump’s first term when he raised prices on many Chinese products.

By 2023, these shipments represented more than 7% of consumption imports, against less than 0.01% per decade earlier. Last year, nearly 1.4 billion packages entered the country using the exemption – more than 3.7 million per day.

Defenders of sculpture, who include maritime companies, say that the system has rationalized trade, leading to a drop in prices and more options for customers.

Those who are in favor of change, a group that includes legislators from both parties, say that companies abuse rules intended to alleviate gifts between family and friends, and that the rise has facilitated the slipping of illegal products, counterfeits or violating security standards and other rules in the country.

Trump recently called a “scam” from Minmimis, brushing concerns about higher costs. “Maybe children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls,” he said.

However, surveys suggest that concerns about its economic policies increase as changes are starting to knock at home.

Krystal Dufrene, a 57 -year -old retiree from Mississippi who relies on disability payments for her income, says she nervously has prices on TEMU for weeks, recently canceling a curtain order after seeing the price more than triple.

Although she finally found the same article for the original price of the American warehouse network of the platform, she says that the cost of her husband’s fishing nets had more than doubled.

“I don’t know who pays the price except the customer,” she said. “Everywhere sells cheap stuff in China, so I prefer to be able to order directly.”

When the rules around Minmis changed last week, TEMU said that it would stop selling goods imported from China in the United States directly to its platform customers, and that all sales would now be managed by “local sellers”, with orders filled inside the United States.

Even without the last prices, the economists Pablo Fajgelbaum and Amit Khandelwal had estimated that the end of Minmis would lead to at least $ 10.9 billion in new costs, which they have found would be worn disproportionate by low -income and minority households.

“It looks like a sort of at the end of an era,” said Gee Davis, a 40-year-old Missouri author, who used Temu during a recent house move to buy small items such as the organizers of Electric Open and Cuisine Ouvre.

She says that it was a relief to be able to easily afford the extras and that the new rules looked like a “seizure of money” by the government for the benefit of large American retailers rooted like Amazon and Walmart who sell similar products – but during a greater increase.

“I don’t think it’s just or just that small treats are (limited) to richer people.

“It would just be a real disappointment if all those who were under a certain household income threshold were no longer able to afford something for themselves.”

As with Trump’s other policy changes, questions remain about the importance of change.

The president has already been forced to suspend politics once before, while packages began to accumulate on the border.

Lori Wallach, director of Rethink Trade, who supports the end of Minmis for consumer security reasons, said that the end of the exemption is important “on paper”, but it fears that the administration will take measures that will weaken its implementation.

It highlights a recent customs opinion, which said that the products affected by many new prices could enter the country through the informal process, a decision that facilitates certain regulatory requirements.

“Practically, because all this can come through an informal entry, it will be extremely difficult to collect prices or be able to inspect really much more than before change,” she said.

Customs and border protection will deny this decision will know the application, noting that companies are always required to provide more information than before.

Companies said they were taking the changes seriously.

Shein and TEMU last month warned customers that prices would increase, while TEMU says that it quickly extends its network of sellers and warehouses based in the United States to protect its low prices.

Other groups of companies say that many smaller and less publicized American brands that manufacture abroad for American customers have trouble – and may not survive.

“If the prices were not in place, it would be like taking some bitter medicine,” explains Alex Belle, a member of the board of directors of ecommerce Innovation Alliance, a group of business lobby and co-founder of PostScript, who works with thousands of small businesses on text messaging marketing.

“But combined with the other prices, especially for the brands that make in China, it just becomes an insurmountable change.”

In a letter to the government last month, the Indochino male clothing company, known for its personalized combinations made on order in China, warned that the end of Minmis has represented a “significant threat to viability” of its activities and other medium -sized American companies like it.

Steven Borelli is the CEO of the Athleisure Cuts clothing company, which manufactures outside the United States, shipping products in a warehouse in Mexico, hence the packages are sent to customers to the United States.

His business pushed to reduce his dependence on China, interrupting orders in the country in months ago. However, he says that he is now considering price increases and job cuts.

He says that his business has the place to maneuver, because it is aimed at high income customers, but he expects “thousands” other brands to die without modifications to the situation.

“We want more time,” he said. “The speed at which everything is going on is too fast for companies to adapt.”