Beyond the Price Tag: How Tariff Reforms Can Slow Fast Fashion

By. Stevie Rosenfeld

DOI. 10.57912/30494846

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When President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending duty exemptions for low-value shipments in July 2025, many perceived and marketed it as part of the administration’s effort to lessen foreign influence in the United States economy and promote domestic production. Trump’s executive order followed an EU proposal from February 2025 to end its duty exemptions. The proposal explained that many importers take advantage of this policy to sell low-quality goods or transport illicit materials, while hindering fair economic competition between producers. Yet, unlike the American administration, the European Union addressed a key flaw in duty exemptions: their environmental impact. The reform of these exemptions may serve to discourage excessive shipping and the carbon emissions associated with it, reduce unnecessary consumption, and require fast fashion companies to restructure to more sustainable business models.

Duty, tariff, and fee exemptions for low-value goods, or “de minimis exemptions,” began in the U.S. to avoid using excessive labor to collect a low tax on an imported item. Critics have opposed de minimis exemptions for low-value goods for reasons ranging from illicit drug transport to consumer rights violations and harms to national economies. Yet, most policy advocates neglect to emphasize the clear danger these exemptions pose to the environment. By allowing cheap shipping for already cheap products, exceptions encourage mass production of low-quality goods and the use of carbon-intensive transport methods to carry them across the globe, as explained in the EU proposal. Reforming these exemptions on a global scale may serve to discourage unnecessary transport and wasteful consumption. Still, few environmentalists have been vocally supportive of reform, possibly due to its affiliation with traditionally conservative and anti-environmental policies and politicians.

Before the order, the U.S. allowed importers to bring in goods valued under $800 to be imported duty-free. Nearly 100 countries utilize de minimis exemptions with differing rates and policies. New Zealand, for example, allows duty-free imports for products under 1,000 NZD. Canada, on the other hand, has an exemption for items under C$20 for most countries, but that exemption applies to items up to C$150 for shipments from the U.S. and Mexico. These varied exemptions encourage global trade and commerce, but also stimulate the production and transportation of low-value goods.

Fast fashion companies such as Shein and Temu utilize de minimis exemptions to ship large amounts of products at exorbitantly low prices. Yet, these products are often of significantly lower quality than their more expensive alternatives due to the fast rate of production and plastic materials. Shein, for example, revealed in its 2023 sustainability report that 75.7% of the clothes sold on the site used polyester, a synthetic and microplastic fabric. While its plastic content means that polyester clothes can last longer than natural fibers, the fast-paced and underfunded production of these goods often means they become unusable more quickly. Additionally, an investigation by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found that products on these platforms are frequently counterfeits of higher-quality, but more expensive products. These problems demonstrate a violation of consumer rights, a concern mentioned by the EU press release. These issues mean consumers discard products after only a few uses and purchase replacements more frequently, further contributing to global waste and carbon emissions from transportation.

These companies continue their practices in part due to de minimis exemptions. While avoiding fees may allow foreign producers to save a few dollars on each package, with 4 million exempt packages entering the United States each day, they can avoid the millions of dollars in customs fees that U.S. businesses pay each year. They further profit when customers buy replacements after the non-durable items wear out. Thus, these de minimis policies support and continue this wasteful cycle.

In 2024, Shein’s shipping practices raised their carbon output by 13.7%, now producing over 7 million metric tons of carbon, which is equivalent to the emissions of over 940,000 households. Shein and Temu alone make up nearly one-third of de minimis exempt imports to the United States. In 2023, Temu’s parent company, Pinduoduo, made $247,639,205 in revenue, and the CEO of Shein’s retailing partner, Authentic Brands Group, said the company’s profits exceeded $30 billion. While Shein released a press release in favor of de minimis reforms in the EU, the global elimination of de minimis exemptions would require a restructuring of their business model.

Though de minimis reforms may help protect domestic manufacturing and prevent the transport of illegal goods, these should not be the only goals reformers and policymakers seek. By proposing de minimis reforms as non-partisan policies that are both economically and environmentally positive, national and regional governments can reduce global carbon outputs while still supporting domestic production. Additionally, reforms can simultaneously make it more difficult to import illegal goods and sell low-quality products, protecting people both as citizens and consumers.

While it may be possible to institute wide-reaching, regional reforms like the EU proposal, this is not the only path to reducing waste and emissions. Individually, national exemption removals could force corporations to greatly alter their business models and lessen unnecessary international shipping. Even without repealing de minimis policies, lowering the maximum for an exemption could make it unsustainable for companies to continue utilizing de minimis and force them to either pay fees or reduce import/export practices. While some companies may opt to ship more goods that are under a reformed valuation, the combination of increased shipping fees and the inability to ship higher value goods duty-free would still alter profit margins and would likely necessitate a change in shipping practices.

De minimis reforms can serve a variety of political, economic, and environmental goals. But when changing and highly partisan pressures subject these reforms to constant shifts, their permanence and impact diminish. By rooting reform in stable, eco-centric, and nonpartisan values like waste reduction, pollution mitigation, and sustainable production, we can ensure that governments change de minimis policies for the good of global citizens, not corporations.