Blumenauer Considering Major Changes to de Minimis Law
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said the $800 de minimis threshold amounts to a huge loophole, and he's going to propose major changes to the law. He said that millions of packages a day enter the U.S. under de minimis, and "nobody's monitoring it. We don't know what's forced labor, what has circumvented intellectual property, counterfeit goods, drugs. CBP's getting better, but who can monitor millions of packages a day?"
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
Blumenauer, who discussed his thoughts at the Capitol in a Dec. 2 hallway interview, said he thinks countries on the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's watch lists for intellectual property abuses should be denied access to de minimis. He said that currently, 83% of the de minimis packages come from China.
He said there could be another way to address the lack of scrutiny of Chinese packages other than an outright ban on de minimis for the country, which would be to say that exporters have to use a customs broker. During a later roundtable with reporters, Blumenauer said he thinks changes to de minimis could get bipartisan support.