"'Di minimus' 'loophole' being closed?" Topic

Just read in the paper that the USG is closing the de minimus tariff 'loophole' from today. Goods under $800 USD will be slapped with 120% tariff reportedly.

This seems to be aimed primarily at Chinese retail exporters and fentanyl smuggling, but taken at face value it looks bound to generate quite a lot of collateral damage in small-scale hobbies/industries like ours.

I live in the UK so this doesn't immediately affect me directly, but like they say, when the hits the fan everyone gets some.

Excellent observation.

Does this just apply to China, or does it also apply to small orders from the UK?

Yes, I also saw this news here: link -- and remembered this being discussed on another board yesterday. Say goodbye to the "loophole" that might have benefited hobbyists like us.

I think it is just imports from China and Hong Kong. I was amazed to see see the De Minimis limit is 800 USD(!), over here it is 135 GBP.

It will probably hit Temu and Shein but unless buying from PRC, it shouldm"t affect most gamers.

It will probably hit Temu and Shein but unless buying from PRC, it shouldm"t affect most gamers.

Martin is correct.

It only goes away for China and Hong Kong.

Various media sources may not be including that very important detail for obvious reasons.

Didn't know it only applied to China, I should read more closely. Good thing cause I'm eyeing some stuff from the UK.

During the previous four years about 300,000 Americans died of Fentanyl overdose. All of the Fentanyl or per-courser chemicals come from Communist China.
If China dropped a bomb on Hawaii and killed 300,000 people we would have nuked them. But killing 300,000 Americans in asymmetrical warfare gets a 120% tariff on packages of less than $800 USD value.
I don't care about my hobby as much as I do about American lives. I will pay the tariff, do without, or find alternatives.

Mike

A lot of game publishers get their components and production done in China -- board games. So this is a big deal to them, and possibly some miniatures importers as well (all those pre-painted Fantasy minis, aren't they coming from overseas?

Who's prescribing all that fentanyl anyway, and who's forcing Americans to take or abuse it? We maybe need to consider how the demand is what's driving the supply, illicit or otherwise.

True piper. I don't know how much of the fentanyl coming in is legal and being over prescribed or abused, and how much is going right to the street, if that's possible.

Who's prescribing all that fentanyl anyway, and who's forcing Americans to take or abuse it? We maybe need to consider how the demand is what's driving the supply, illicit or otherwise.

I think China is a bit bemused by the hypocrisy of The West ™️. Going back to the Opium Wars where the filthy foreigners were invading China for the "right" to import opium into China.
Now, fentanyl, but the opposite direction.
Explain to me again how China is holding a gun to the head of addicts.
I once overheard a conversation with a "dude" who was praising the high from both fentanyl and oxy.
Not my circus, not my monkeys.

I heard a report Temu pulled all products in the US that drop ship from China…

Yes --this is a NY Times Share link from me, should not be behind a paywall: link

I'm not sure how a US shipper might stymie the tariffs, or complicate delivery, but this is what is reported today.

I was under the impression that that the vast bulk of Fentenyl came in over the border from Mexico rather than being posted directly to consumers. Where there is a market there is a supply. It might be worth asking the question why the US has such a high demand for opiods.

Cocaine may not kill as many but it's global effect is worse. Drugs are strictly supply and demand. It used to be crack, then ice, now Fentanyl and nose candy. Laws can be as tough as hell; addicts still want it. Even Australia has problems.

The numbers on Fentanyl and opioids in general are horrid but at least out here in rural Colorado, meth is our primary problem and those addicts seem to be cooking the stuff locally.

+1 to Martin Rapier, above. A healthy, contented society wouldn't be constantly sedating itself or looking to escape daily reality in a suicidal fashion.

The loophole is about the chemicals needed to make fentanyl, not fentanyl itself. It's being used by China and the drug cartels to get around efforts to block the importation of completed fentanyl by instead making the fentanyl domestically after the components slipped past customs.

As for fentanyl, it's killing a lot of young people who either take it inadvertently, or take something else laced with it. One of the tactics of the cartel dealers is to take paper money, fold it around fentanyl, and drop the money on the ground in areas near schools. Kids pick up the money, and since the fentanyl can be absorbed by skin oils even if not ingested, BAM— they're either dead or hooked.

Drug dealers are evil. And yes, even British ones from the Opium Wars. But is the past hypocrisy to be weighed as condoning a reversion today? In the past we also had slavery and concubines and laws permitting the caning of wives. Should we not criticize such things today? And here's the thing— if you did say "ship in whatever," do you think that will cause the drug dealers to all convert into puppy-loving organic beet farmers? You think they will suddenly say, "Oh, you made it legal now? I'm sooo sorry for my past behavior including murder, rape, and the entrapment of minors! I've seen the light, and will now donate all my profits to charity, and spend weekends in the park petting squirrels!" Pfffft. Evil will continue to be evil, and will find other ways to be evil— or just stick with the same ways, ‘cause "official" drug dealing requires the payment of taxes, and they sure as Hades aren't gonna pay those. And meanwhile, you'll only increase the number of addicts.

I don't care what the new drug of choice will be; I care that American citizens NOT DIE from the drugs inflicted upon our society TODAY. And heck yeah, I'll pay a pittance more for a bunch of cheap-ass plastic soldiers if it stops the death and addiction from spreading. The US is my circus, and the kids dying are therefore my monkeys. And they're yours, too. And yes, it does affect you— crime in your cities, increased costs of your healthcare, shoplifting surging your prices for goods, violence which could easily affect you, and public money having to go into policing and emergency medicine to deal with all this— yeah, it's your circus. Even if you don't want it to be.

Back on topic: You're also all stuck on ONE thing. But that thing isn't the only thing going on. An economy is not determined by one element; it is determined by all the elements.

Right now, in the US the price of gasoline and diesel has fallen 40% below what it was one year go. That's a 40% lowering of a significant cost in shipping. It also produces the effect of more money in the consumer's pocket— money which can now be spent on other goods and services. A report from April shows an overall reduction in the price of consumer goods and services of 0.5%, and that's with all the elements affecting prices considered. So things are actually effectively cheaper now, on the whole, than they were at the start of the year (or any time last year, or in the previous 4 years). So, in the main, consumers can get more for their money now than they could before… and that means the end cost to the consumer of all the products they buy (including games) is lower than before.
But that's not all that should be considered. Other elements are things like job opportunities, increased wages (real wages from last year have increased by 2.2%), a surging stock market (if you sold last month, you lost a lot of money. If you held, you lost nothing. If you bought, you just made a ton of money), and other things going on, including massive announcements of investment in US products, companies, and domestic manufacturing.

Let's say that we wind up with an increase in game prices— but we also see an increase in wages, more people employed in high-paying jobs, a reduction in cost of energy, food, medicine, and even taxes… the boom will outweigh any such price increase, indeed will probably result in it effectively vanishing as the cost of the tariff and production shifts will be offset by decreased costs of production and distribution in other ways— namely energy costs.