Cracking Down on China’s Trade Cheating the Right Way
Ken Blackwell /
As a longtime advocate for free enterprise, economic growth, and policies that put American workers and small businesses first, I’ve cheered President Donald Trump’s decisive crackdown on trade abuses that have flooded our markets with cheap, often unsafe goods from Chinese platforms like Shein and Temu.
These companies have exploited the U.S. de minimis policy exemption, which allows shipments under $800 to enter the United States duty-free and with little oversight.
That exemption has undercut U.S. manufacturers by evading the Trump administration’s sorely needed tariffs and contributed to job losses in American factories.
Addressing the de minimis policy and China’s exploitation of it was long overdue. Thankfully, the Trump administration last summer signed an executive order closing the exemption, a step in the right direction.
I also commend Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., for their steadfast work holding China’s unfair trading practices accountable. They’ve done this by pushing to close the de minimis loophole to calling for investigations into counterfeiting and IP theft by Chinese platforms to advocating broader reforms to revoke preferential trade status and safeguard American jobs.
As Cotton recently stated, “The de minimis loophole has allowed Chinese companies like Shein and Temu to flood our market with junk, opioids, and other illegal products, often created from stolen American intellectual property.”
In the rush to crack down on bad actors in online commerce, however, there is a real danger of overshooting the mark. If we are not careful, well-intentioned reforms could punish the very people our economy depends on: law-abiding American marketplaces and the millions of small sellers who rely on them.
These American platforms aren’t like Shein and Temu.
They aren’t faceless foreign corporations churning out cheap goods by the container load.
They host average Janes and Joes on Main Street–veterans looking for supplemental income, moms and dads building side businesses, and retirees turning hobbies into modest paychecks. You can find vintage records, handmade furniture, gently used tools, or family heirlooms passed to appreciative buyers.
Entire U.S. small businesses are built around selling their products on these platforms. This is the heart of everyday American commerce: personal, creative, and rooted here at home.
That world couldn’t be more different from the flood of mass-produced, dirt-cheap imports from Chinese-based companies like Shein and Temu.
One side is about foreign factories racing to the bottom on price, dodging rules, and undercutting American workers. The other is pure American hustle: starting new businesses, turning what they’ve got lying around into extra cash, keeping dollars in our own neighborhoods instead of shipping them overseas.
Regular folks aren’t customs or trade experts. Forcing them to provide exact origin details or guess where their tag-less sweater was made just scares them away from listing items on these marketplaces in the first place.
Congress and the administration should clarify tariff treatment for used goods and streamline customs processing for legitimate low-risk shipments.
Unsuspecting Americans?should not face?surprise fees or endless paperwork, sometimes leading them to decide it’s easier to throw things away than deal with the hassle.
We should fully support Trump’s efforts, bolstered by leaders like Cotton and Scott–ramping up enforcement against massive, high-volume foreign shippers flooding our markets; demanding transparency from overseas platforms hiding behind loopholes; and shutting down outright cheating that’s warped fair competition.
But a blunt, one-size-fits-all approach piling red tape on small-time, rule-following American sellers and everyday buyers risks undermining the very entrepreneurship conservatives seek to protect.
At its core, this is about getting government right the conservative way: by being precise and surgical while avoiding friendly-fire damage.
We must nail the de minimis abusers who exploit the system, but we also must preserve the freedom and flexibility that allow everyday Americans to participate in online commerce without Washington standing in their way.
In other words, let’s crack down on Beijing’s cheating–but not punish the American side hustler trying to make an honest buck in the process. Smart reform is within reach. We just need to work thoughtfully to make it happen.
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