[CTC] DeLauro pushes Trump to go beyond ‘half measures’ on de minimis reform

Arthur Stamoulis arthur at citizenstrade.org
Thu Feb 13 06:55:18 PST 2025


DeLauro pushes Trump to go beyond ‘half measures’ on de minimis reform
By David LaRoss, Inside U.S. Trade 
February 13, 2025 at 9:00 AM
 
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) on Wednesday renewed her call to end de minimis tariff waivers for all shipments worth $800 or less, attacking as a “half measure” President Trump’s now-scrapped order disqualifying Chinese imports while conceding that broader reform will require a “transitional” phase-in.
 
“I am frustrated by the Trump administration’s recent half measures and reversals on de minimis. This past week has been the equivalent of taking one step forward and two steps back,” DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House appropriations panel, said during a Feb. 12 press call.
 
Trump suspended de minimis for shipments from China as part of his Feb. 1 order imposing a blanket 10 percent tariff on those imports. That initially appeared to be a win for lawmakers such as DeLauro who have sought to eliminate duty-free treatment either for Chinese shipments or across the board, but Trump walked back the move on Feb. 7 with a new order reinstating de minimis until “adequate systems are in place” to process and collect tariffs on those packages.
 
“This administration claims they want to close the de minimis loophole, but they have consistently failed to implement their own policies and given us all severe whiplash,” DeLauro said.
 
She urged the White House to craft a “comprehensive” order to completely end de minimis treatment for imports rather than only for China, while building in “necessary” time for regulators and shippers to prepare for millions of low-value shipments to go through entry processing. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol has said it sees about 4 million such packages each day.
 
“A comprehensive well-planned, executive order to close the loophole would give time for implementation” until CBP, the U.S. Postal Service and express shipping companies “are able to manage the new screening and the assessment process,” she said.
 
“Importers have to have the capability to shift back up to the formal entry system, to invest in warehouse capacity for more packages allowing CBP to assess packages at for risk,” DeLauro continued. She also added that “we need to hold the shipping companies accountable,” without specifying what requirements would ensure accountability.
 
In response to a question from Inside U.S. Trade, the lawmaker said she was not yet sure how long that period should be: “I’ll be honest -- I think that has to be sorted out. We don’t know exactly how long. But what we need to do is have predictability.”
 
DeLauro added that she hoped a transition would not take “several years,” but noted key questions officials would need to answer before deciding on a timeline. “What are the storage capacities? What needs to be done in that area, or what if there is additional personnel that needs to be that to be higher? That has to be taken into consideration,” she said.
 
“I think that these are the things that have to be, you know, sorted out, and clearly in the Trump administration it doesn't appear that anything these days is well thought out. They just throw it out there and then [say] ‘Let's see what the consequences are,’ and then we pull back, or there's a half measure. I mean, that's no way to move forward.”
 
She also nodded to the array of bills floated in recent years that would restrict or eliminate de minimis. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have proposed such legislation, but so far have struggled to reach consensus on which approach should move forward.
 
“I was trying to get it shut down in the last days of the Biden administration,” DeLauro said, noting that former Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who until his retirement this year was ranking member on the House Ways & Means Committee’s trade panel, “had legislation to try to move forward.” His proposal would have restricted all goods from China from receiving de minimis treatment.
 
Last month Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI), chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, introduced a bill with House Ways & Means Committee member Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Jim Banks (R-IN) that would make Chinese goods ineligible for de minimis treatment, as well as strip the country of its permanent normal trade relations status and phase in new tariffs on its exports ranging from 35 to 100 percent.
 
In contrast to both of those proposals, however, DeLauro and other speakers at the Feb. 12 event argued that de minimis should be repealed for all imports rather than only those from China. That breaks not only with the proposed bills but also with a still-pending rulemaking put forward by the Biden administration to block any goods subject to section 201, 301 and 232 tariffs from de minimis benefits.
 
“Let me be clear that closing the de minimis loophole only for certain countries still allows packages to be routed into the U.S through other intermediate destinations,” such as Vietnam or Thailand, DeLauro said.
Kim Glas, president of the National Council of Textile Organizations -- one of the most prominent industry voices for de minimis reform -- also spoke on the call, echoing echoed DeLauro’s argument for canceling the policy worldwide.
 
“If only China is denied these benefits they will simply trans-ship through other third-party countries,” which would force U.S. authorities into a “Whack-a-Mole” situation, she said.
 
DeLauro also said she favors requiring that all shipments go through CBP’s “formal entry” process, through which either the shipper or the recipient must provide comprehensive information on a package’s origins, contents and destination. Trump’s Feb. 1 order requires formal entry for postal packages from China, which Glas noted still allows shipments sent in other ways to avoid those disclosures.
 
“We need to have formal entry, so we can know the full set of the information about the product so CBP can make that decision of what products are riskier than others,” DeLauro said. -- David LaRoss (dlaross at iwpnews.com)


Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




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