Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States
306 comments
·August 25, 2025bsimpson
johnbrodie
The DOT standard isn't good, but the US doesn't disallow helmets that meet other standards. You can buy Bell and Alpinestars MIPS helmets in the US today, no gray market needed: https://www.revzilla.com/mips-motorcycle-helmets
ericmay
> Closing these de minimus exemptions is making it harder for discerning consumers to buy higher quality goods than are currently available in the US right now.
Everything has a trade-off.
On the other hand, it also prevents companies from dumping artificially cheap and crappy goods (TEMU) on US markets and making it nearly impossible for others to compete.
Unsuspecting consumers buy a super cheap (subsidized) crap product on Amazon or Temu or Shien or wherever - probably a knock-off of an American product, have it shipped to the US, then it disintegrates after a couple of uses or stops working, and we wind up with pollution, additional landfill, and relentless consumerism that's harmful to the country all so we can help a certain country whose name starts with a C keep the lights on and keep factories running so that they don't see unemployment numbers tick up.
Legitimate businesses selling higher quality products where they exist will be able to figure it out. Or not. It's not a big deal if your sunscreen is slightly worse than the Korean version (which I use). Maybe it just hasn't been approved because they haven't done the work to apply because they can get around working with our government and making sure their product meets our safety standards because of the de minimus loophole?
There's also safety concerns, which I think the CBP did a good job of overviewing here: https://www.cbp.gov/frontline/buyer-beware-bad-actors-exploi... . Send drugs or guns or illegal animal products to the US, get caught, who cares you live in (not the US) so you can just spin up another sham company and do it again.
Scoundreller
My counterexample is that I sell mid-high end vintage bicycle parts.
There’s about a 0% chance of Shimano or Campagnolo bringing that production to the US because they haven’t made this stuff in several decades.
I’ve now jacked my US shipping prices to account for tariffs. I’ll probably lose all US sales.
US buyers probably won’t realize that ~5-10% of its supply has disappeared for these parts. They also may not recognize that US sellers can/will raise their prices accordingly but they will have that increase in price.
Heck, I know some Canadian sellers that set up their supply chain well enough that they put down a US location and buyers think they’re buying domestic. Those will be toast (or have to vastly inflate their pricing).
bsimpson
I bought a pair of motorcycle boots this way. It was a brand that isn't routinely imported into the US. The seller was a dealership near the Canadian border. It was something like they stocked them in London, Ontario and sold them from their Detroit subsidiary.
bigyabai
> and we wind up with pollution, additional landfill, and relentless consumerism that's harmful to the country
But that happens regardless of whether or not you import manufactured goods, doesn't it?
nluken
You're not going to get new clothing for TEMU prices without the de minimis exception. In theory, the higher price of these goods will decrease the amount they're purchased and lessen impact of pollution.
As others in this thread point out, though, there are other casualties of this change.
Scoundreller
The funny thing about MIPS is that it makes the same helmet safer, but it might have been a garbage helmet to begin with.
Throwing away your non-MIPS helmet and replacing it with a MIPS may be a safety-reducing decision, unless you’re buying the exact same model.
solardev
For anyone who wants more data, Virginia Tech runs a helmet impact testing lab and publishes results and rankings: https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html
Scoundreller
If we used a similar methodology for testing cars, we’d be blasting watermelon heads from a cannon against windshields and sacks of potatoes against steering wheels.
We’d benefit from more realistic models. But I guess our helmets would then cost $500.
throwawa5
> Apparently ending the de minimus exemption is closing the grey market for e.g. sunscreen; places that used to sell Japanese sunscreens on American shelves no longer are.
Stylevana, where I go for my Japanese/Korean sunscreen and skincare, is still shipping to the US as far as I can tell.
andrewinardeer
Do they use Japan Post?
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stefan_
De minimis makes no sense and the EU doesn't have it either - in fact they recently managed to even make the Chinese properly fill out the tax forms and in most cases prepay it.
ivape
Americans don't fully understand what a pain in the ass it is for people in other countries to buy whatever they want. They are always paying some additional amount, if it's even available.
Gud
Not really the case in at least Europe and the gulf states
pessimizer
I don't understand the argument that it's bad that the government is suppressing grey markets in goods that aren't approved in the US.
I get it from a selfish point of view, as in I want a particular helmet and I think the design is safer, so I'm upset when I can't have it at the price I want it. I don't understand it as a political argument. If our government isn't meant to do anything, shut it down entirely. Don't have processes and subvert them so everybody can do what they want when they want.
Who would you vote for to get rules broken whenever they stop you from doing what you want, and why would anybody else vote for that person?
That being said, I deeply understand that the science and regulation around any sort of helmeting in the US (also in the case of motorcycles) is completely compromised by the people who sell helmets. The way you fix that is by fixing regulatory processes, not making rules easier to break for connected, smart, wealthy people. If you think fixing regulatory processes is an absurd, naïve impossibility, shut the government down and stop complaining about trivialities.
hypeatei
The government can't solve for everything at all times. That's why free markets exist and are important. You could have the best most awesome helmet safety regulation get passed on Friday and have it completely blown up by a new discovery on Monday. How long will it take for regulators to catch up?
> The way you fix that is by fixing regulatory processes
Well, that kinda hand waves away a lot of the roadblocks you run into with government and elected officials. In an ideal world, yes, we have regulatory and legislative bodies that can react quickly and do the right thing everytime but that isn't reality.
bsimpson
Two things are happening at the same time.
On the one hand, government is broken writ large. It's been dominated by politicians who care more about power than improvement for as long as I've been alive. The problem becomes worse and feels more intractable every year. I'm not convinced there's anything individuals can practically do to help resolve it. (Those in power would ruin your life if you actually did a good job at making the world better in a way that impinged on their power.)
On the other hand, technology is enabling rules to be enforced in a more automated way. You see this with speed cameras, and now also with these stricter shipping requirements.
These rules were written to have an exhaust valve: for speed limits, that's police discretion. For imports, that's the de minimus exemption. Nobody cares what individuals do; they care what markets do (which is part of why bans are usually bans on selling, not on owning).
I touched on this a little bit about self-driving cars the other day too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44987516
The ratcheting of rules into automated policy is dystopian.
estimator7292
You can have either a free market or a market tightly controlled by a government plus all the cronyism that entails.
We generally refer to the latter option as "communism"
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4ndrewl
It's the price of uncertainty.
Business can plan for low tax or high tax regimes. Not so much when it's just "unknown".
Similar across Europe https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/aug/25/postal-serv...
sillyfluke
I was wondering how this would affect the programmer that was sending people Japanese candy packages back in the day, but apparently they shut it down already due to postal restrictions and related increases in postal rates during Covid. Now I'm curious who survived that but is shutting down due to this.
tempodox
Main thing is uncle Donald gets his beloved chaos and unpredictability. God forbid anything could be predictable or knowable without his direct personal approval. After an appropriate tribute, of course.
pbreit
This was always a completely insane loophole that the item on Amazon was much more expensive than the exact same item on Temu.
franze
Austria, too. I know somebody working there in mid-management. They say the don't care about high or low taxes on the parcels they transport, but they need a straight forward way to execute, and there just is none.
Scoundreller
This is the issue for postal systems.
In every country in the world, you could send a package by post and the receiving country’s customs will assess duty/taxes/admin fees and charge the recipient as the default procedure.
As of later this week, the US will not do that procedure (or allegedly charge some absurd flat rate, like $50-$200 on even a $1 package).
Sending postal systems don’t want to deal with the aftermath of rejected/refused packages. And it’s unknown if US Customs and US Postal Service is even capable of charging that flat rate anyway.
ViewTrick1002
In the EU a flat fee was introduced to deal with the workload and a system to send predeclared items.
The difference is that it was communicated well in advance without any uncertainty.
Scoundreller
It’s not a flat fee though, it’s the VAT rate and an admin fee if you don’t go the IOSS route.
When I sent an unpaid item, I think I paid 5 EUR/pkg for processing to France customs on top of VAT because I paid online after France assessed it, but before delivery.
US is saying any parcel arriving without duty paid would be charged $80-$200 flat fee solely depending on which tariff rate applies. IE, from a “bad” country, a $1 item could have a $200 fee. Or as low as a bargain or $80.
They’re basically treating every parcel like it’s work $800 item.
https://www.valueaddedresource.net/trump-ends-de-minimis-exe...
Anecdotally, many Canadian shippers have reported that China item containing parcels have just been getting returned to sender. No American has received a bill at the door for postal imports.
thm
Unless they're declared as gift <$100 or sent via Express.
Scoundreller
Americans going to be receiving a lot of $99 gifts!
illegalmemory
India has done the same as well
https://www.business-standard.com/immigration/india-post-sus...
pavel_lishin
And several European countries: https://apnews.com/article/us-tariffs-goods-services-suspens...
mtmail
DHL's announcement
"Temporary restrictions on postal goods shipping to the U.S. for private and business customers"
https://group.dhl.com/en/media-relations/press-releases/2025...
morsch
I looked it up. Sending a regular smallish package (2 kg, 35 x 25 x 10 cm, think small laptop) from Germany to NYC is about 25 EUR, now only available for gifts under 100 EUR. Sending it as express, which is what businesses now apparently have to do, is about 80 EUR.
micwag
Switzerland as well: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/trade-policy/swiss-post-tempora...
vFunct
So does any other shipper (UPS? Fedex?) allow shipments from India?
Scoundreller
Yes, but you won’t like the pricing.
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RantyDave
And New Zealand
moho
As did Thailand
bamboozled
Australia too
cheema33
This needs to be repeated. Tariffs are a tax on ordinary citizens. Unlike regular taxes, tariffs are not progressive and therefore benefit the wealthy.
These are the sort of things the poor and middle class voted for. To make the rich, richer. And then turn around and complain that rich are getting richer and they are getting poorer.
dfxm12
I'm sure Japan, and other countries doing similar things, don't like the tariffs either. Hopefully actions like this will change voter behavior, either at the polls or to embolden voters to do whatever it is they can to tell their elected officials to revert these changes. Maybe this is a drop in the bucket, but on the other hand, maybe Japan doesn't want to/can't make a bigger a splash.
In any case, it is rare that Americans face consequences for bad behavior of American foreign policy. Hopefully Americans get more engaged and introspective this time around.
rkuykendall-com
> Hopefully actions like this will change voter behavior
It won't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_tr...
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atmavatar
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ryandrake
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pessimizer
> This needs to be repeated. Tariffs are a tax on ordinary citizens. Unlike regular taxes, tariffs are not progressive and therefore benefit the wealthy.
No, people need to stop repeating it, because it's an extremely stupid anti-tax argument. Tariffs are meant to onshore production and raise wages. Telling half the story is simply lying. You might as well complain about buying food because it costs money. You might as well complain about all consumption because consumption is regressive.
The problem isn't tariffs, you can send that money to poor people. The problem is that nobody cares about poor people, including Trump. A lack of tariffs isn't going to make America moral.
One of the only things Trump is doing unbelievably well on is trade. Tariffs haven't been damaging at all. They should be more damaging, but the US is so dependent on foreign poverty that we have to leave any tariff scheme as filled with holes as swiss cheese. The fact is our manufacturing is so based in the exploitation of low-rights and low paid workers from other countries that entire industries would immediately start failing if we ended up in a real trade war with e.g. China.
> To make the rich, richer. And then turn around and complain that rich are getting richer and they are getting poorer.
These are Koch brothers policies you're advocating as if they're social justice. The reason why every capitalist you know is complaining about tariffs isn't because they make the rich richer (by some method yet to be explained.)
yibg
Details matter. Tariffs CAN promote domestic manufacturing and raise wages. But a few things need to be true for that to happen:
1. Targeted specific tariffs aimed at industries we want to protect. Not a flat across the board tariffs on all / most things coming in. The latter IS just a tax on the consumer.
2. Other policies aimed at promoting the said industries. e.g. CHIPS act.
3. Consistency, predictability and stability of policies. No one is going to move manufacturing to the US if they aren't sure if tariffs are going up or down or will get removed entirely on short notice at a whim.
We have none of the above.
Sohcahtoa82
> Tariffs are meant to onshore production and raise wages.
Both of which would still lead to higher prices on the consumer.
> One of the only things Trump is doing unbelievably well on is trade. Tariffs haven't been damaging at all.
I don't know whether to laugh at the absurdity of this statement or to cry because someone could actually say it with a straight face.
Marsymars
Tariffs based on worker and environmental rights would be great, but Trump's are based on entirely irrelevant things.
johannes1234321
Using tariffs is A common way to protect local industry. However it is a dangerous weapon, which has downsides. In history tariffs have show to lead to high prices on the domestic market and products which are subpar to globally standards. Domestic companies don't have pressure to innovate, while global market has more competition.
Consequence of that is protection by product group for key products one wants to have locally and not per origin on all kinds of goods.
This can lead to short term wins, but backfire after a while.
colechristensen
I think it's quite the opposite. Tariffs are flat taxes on corporations AND can't be avoided with the tax shenanigans all big corporations use and many small ones can't. Implementation and motivation details aside I'm in favor of small tariffs for all but the most equal trade partners.
Corporate taxes have the problem of small business paying much more proportionally than large ones and a flat tax on businesses that rely on cheap foreign labor and goods is deserved.
Trump doesn't get to define all of my opinions by me needing to oppose exactly everything he's done.
The problem with the current political situation is the establishment in both parties w were too cowardly or useless to address real problems which are now actually being addressed by objectively stupid fascists.
And that is the lesson to everyone, get stuff done or get replaced by awful people doing awful things.
graeme
>Tariffs are flat taxes on corporations
The OP said tariffs are not progressive taxes. You are agreeing with them while believing you are disagreeing.
Further tariffs are not specific to corporations. Individuals pay them. Small business pay them. Large businesses pay them.
folsom
Then you would agree that all corporate taxes are not progressive and are eventually paid by all consumers thus all corporate taxes should be abolished.
mlyle
In the long run, tariffs basically all fall on the consumer because producer and distributor behavior is near infinitely elastic. Econ 101 predicts that the party who is less able to adjust behavior in reaction to the tax pays most of the tax.
In the short run, this isn't true: firms have goods they need to move.
zahlman
This model predicts much higher prices overall than actually observed, especially on the goods deemed most essential (like food). There are many reasons that companies cannot simply charge "what the market will bear".
tsunamifury
We are in a world economy which actually needs demand more than supply. This is your missing analysis.
rapind
> The problem with the current political situation is the establishment in both parties w were too cowardly or useless to address real problems which are now actually being addressed by objectively stupid fascists.
> And that is the lesson to everyone, get stuff done or get replaced by awful people doing awful things.
I don't think that the establishment who benefitted from the status quo actually cares nearly as much as they pretend to while the poor and eroding middle class bear the brunt of the suffering. I doubt rich reagonites and clintonites who made a killing off of deregulation and cheap overseas labour have many regrets.
asah
WSJ had a nice article on this today: https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/taxes/corporate-income-...
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CamperBob2
Corporations don't pay taxes. They pass them on to their customers: us.
And applying tariffs to tools and raw materials when you're supposed to be trying to bring manufacturing back to your country is... well, let's just say any government stupid enough to do that isn't likely to improve things in any other respect.
hdgvhicv
Invisible hand forces prices down.
If tarrifs on imported goods are high then people choose non imported goods (which might be substitutes for goods which can’t be made in America) as there are no tarrifs.
They are dangerous though. If country A stops selling to US it sells cheaper to other countries. It also stops importing from the US (and chooses subsidies).
Overall everyone loses out - at least in theory, as everyone uses worse substitutes.
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smohare
[dead]
msgodel
They're not nearly as bad as income tax which would have to be raised if we didn't do tariffs.
At least tariffs tax consumption rather than production. Taxing production/income is horribly evil and in better times (such as when the country was founded) people who insisted on it would have been shot.
woadwarrior01
> At least tariffs tax consumption rather than production. Taxing production/income is horribly evil and in better times (such as when the country was founded) people who insisted on it would have been shot.
Not true. Producing almost anything in the material world requires raw materials. If any of them are imported, they suffer from tariffs.
IMO, if a consumption tax is what you're looking for, then value added tax (VAT) is a more suitable solution.
airstrike
> would have to be raised if we didn't do tariffs
This isn't true.
os2warpman
>and in better times (such as when the country was founded)
Better for who?
Better for me, definitely, I'm a white upper-middle-class military veteran professional landowning (mortgages don't count, buddy) male.
I would be guffawing on a porch in the town square, smoking a corncob pipe, pitched back in a rocking chair resting my feet up on a barrel, as the local militia marched off to shoot people for protesting taxation or their lack of voting rights.
Anyone who thinks the 1700s were "better" is a slice short of a whole pie.
marcosdumay
> I'm a white upper-middle-class military veteran professional landowning (mortgages don't count, buddy) male
If you don't own a stable company, you may still be too poor to benefit from those ones.
bendbro
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CalRobert
You can still send letters- this is a big deal but it’s not -quite- as bad as I first thought since my ballot is mailed in from abroad…
jleyank
Remember, he’s ending mail-in ballots…
westernmostcoy
That's not within his power to do.
jleyank
He wasn’t allowed to end the r&d system in the us, but nobody stopped him. He wasn’t allowed to create export tariffs, go nuts with import tariffs, rip up senate passed treaties, …. As others have said, somebody has to stop the process and to date it’s not been stopped.
_aavaa_
Neither was starting “military actions” in the past. Laws need to be enforced to have any power.
apricot
> That's not within his power to do.
What rock have you been living under for the past eight months?
imglorp
It's his standard procedure over and over again; works great for him.
Talk it up. If it keeps him in the headlines, great.
Throw it against the wall and see if it sticks. If he gets sued, fine, there's a decade of suits piled up in the queue, no problem. If there's an injunction, maybe ignore it and try anyway (queue full). If he's truly blocked, it's the commie judges and he'll make that better soon. OTOH if he gets away with that, more outrage and more PR for him, success.
Early stage fascism thrives on outrage fatigue to slim opposition. Do three more outrages today. Repeat tomorrow.
throw0101a
> That's not within his power to do.
Trump has the power to do anything that people (especially Congress) does not push back against.
> 1. Do not obey in advance.
> Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
wasabi991011
Neither is ending birthright citizenship, dismantling USAID, closing the department of education, firing the heads of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board (independent federal agencies) without cause, impounding funds appropriated by Congress, etc.
Nevertheless, Trump has started process for all of those, and has been successful at many due to the slowness of the courts.
jcotton42
Trump has tried to do plenty of things that aren't within his power, like ending birthright citizenship by executive order.
ModernMech
It is if you live in a state controlled by a GOP governor and legislature. Trump also doesn't have the power to gerrymander Texas, yet he commanded it, and then it happened. Which means he actually does have the power.
paulsutter
AFAIK the proposal is to go back to absentee ballots, rather than the blanket free for all today
amanaplanacanal
My state does all elections completely by mail, which means all paper ballots. It seems to work perfectly.
paganel
Which is good, as that is easier to fraud/tamper with. If you can’t be arsed to move your pistruie to a voting section come Election Day then you shouldn’t be allowed to vote anyway.
prasadjoglekar
Thank you. And to further clarify, Japan Post provides a way to ship packages with the appropriate customs declarations.
scoopr
While technically true, f.ex. Finland has stopped all mail shipments[0]. I guess the airlines were not set up to dealing with the hassle of making sure all the shipments are “allowed”. Or maybe just lazy, dunno really.
[0] https://www.posti.fi/en/latest-news-at-posti/%20/news/trump-...
phoenixhaber
I'm worried that this could have unforeseen knock on effects or create havoc. Fukushima knocked out global supply chains for parts on cars so for a couple years there were no Honda fits for example (they were missing a necessary but small part). Is there any risk of domino effects having to do with business closures or is it just moronic and annoying?
hadlock
This is specific to mail service, it does not impact private carriers (fedex, dhl, etc)
timr
Title is not accurate. They're allowing personal shipments under $100, and the rest can be shipped via their UGX service.
It sounds like JP doesn't want to deal with the customs paperwork at scale (edit: also the deposits).
lucky_cloud
Under $100... by what measure? I'm going to Japan soon and was planning on shipping a bunch of clothes, books, etc to myself. I'm not going to sell any of it, I just want to send a bunch of stuff back without having to deal with checking another bag. So as far as I'm concerned, there's no dollar value. I'm buying stuff in Yen for my own personal use...
But I suppose I'll just check a bag or use a different carrier...
timr
Declared value. When you ship, they ask you to list the items you're shipping, and what they are worth. These go on the customs forms. Boxes can be opened and inspected, so lying is a gamble, but there's obviously a lot of wiggle room here.
The changes are to the commercial de minimis rule, so AFAIK, the personal $800 exemption when you bring something with you still applies, and you might not have anything to worry about at all. Also, when you declare something as "American goods returned", they are not subject to either de minimis rule, even if you send them by mail.
Things you purchased outside the US could qualify as well, if you can prove that you owned them for more than a year while living abroad. But realistically, nobody is going to make a federal case about a box full of old books and underwear...a box full of Louis Vuitton bags and Moncler jackets with tags, on the other hand...
Kye
I couldn't find a way to fit all that in the title, so I got 99% there and clarified in the first post. The title still has more resolution toward the full detail than the original title.
timr
Yeah, it's literally the same as the title on the page so I get it, but unfortunately it's a hot-button political issue and people are eager to misinterpret.
I'd suggest something like: "Japan Post stops accepting US shipments over $100."
Kye
I did that with a slight change: "Japan Post to temporarily stop shipments to US over $100"
To emphasize that it's not in effect yet and that it's to, not from.
edit: Someone went and reverted it to something less clear than everything else
Mr_Eri_Atlov
Every morning I wake up and check to see if it's happened yet.
bamboozled
If he has passed on ?
mmaunder
Sounds like the Japanese commercial carriers are going to get a bump in business since they're not interrupted.
cinntaile
Japan Post is a commercial carrier, the biggest one.
It's only temporary, due to the uncertainty. What a waste of resources this whole thing has been.
rozab
The font rendering on this site is crazy, I guess traditional Japanese fonts like MS PGothic always render bitmaps at smaller sizes. It's fine when zoomed in (or on HiDPI displays i guess). Is it just assumed that Japanese users have better fonts installed?
Havoc
I don't get the $100 threshold they're setting? What's the logic behind accepting small packages when suddenly everything is above de minimis?
There was chatter about this in one of the NYC subreddits over the weekend.
Apparently ending the de minimus exemption is closing the grey market for e.g. sunscreen; places that used to sell Japanese sunscreens on American shelves no longer are.
There's a frustratingly long list of goods that the US decided to put requirements on in previous generations, and then stopped maintaining. Sunscreen is one; other countries have invented sunscreens that feel better on your skin than the old styles, but aren't yet approved in the US. Motorcycle helmets are another. You may have seen the MIPS system - the yellow slipliner that's become popular in bicycle helmets. Scientists have realized that rotational impact leads to concussions and similar brain damage, but prior helmets only protected against naive impacts. Europe now requires helmets to protect against rotational damage. The US requires that manufacturers self-assert that they meet a very old standard that ignores rotational impact. They do not recognize Europe's new standard.
Closing these de minimus exemptions is making it harder for discerning consumers to buy higher quality goods than are currently available in the US right now. Protectionists are going to see this as a win.
More background on helmet standards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BUyp3HX8cY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76yu124i3Bo