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ELI5: Why did both US & EU end de minimis? (nord.pub)
submitted 2 weeks ago by to c/explainlikeimfive@lemmy.world
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There's only one country I know of where de minimis stands as one of the highest currently: Australia, as they allow imports that are free from tariffs up to A$1000 ($700 / 623€) or below. Meanwhile, in both the US & EU (they used to have a de minimis threshold for imports valued below $800 / 150€, but that's no longer available).

I know that the US now imposes customs duty for every import irrespective of the items value. The EU now charges 3€ per item along with charging additional VAT for foreign imports. Why suddenly they decided to rescind duty free when importing goods from overseas? Is it because they want to extract more money?

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[–] 13 points 2 weeks ago

USA because tariffs.

EU because they’re flooded with imports and couldn’t keep up on inspections (ie drugs etc.) and there was a problem of imports that meet no standards, which is important for things that have standards to prevent things like house fires

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    [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago

    I think basically yes, the tariff strategy was too easy to bypass with de minimis. And the temus and alibabas of the world sold almost exclusively de minimis goods at much faster rates than before, basically edging into Amazon's turf too effectively, and our ruling class doesn't like that

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