The mechanism. For years, Section 321 of the Tariff Act let any package worth $800 or less enter the U.S. duty-free with minimal customs scrutiny — the loophole that let Shein and Temu ship hundreds of millions of individual parcels straight from Chinese factories to American doorsteps, tariff-free. That ended in stages: Executive Order 14324 suspended the exemption for China on May 2, 2025, then Executive Order for all countries took effect August 29, 2025, and a Federal Register notice published June 24, 2026 made the suspension indefinite across every mode of transport except the international postal network. Every low-value parcel now needs a formal or informal customs entry and immediate duty payment.
That kills the economics of parcel-by-parcel drop-shipping. But it doesn't kill cross-border e-commerce — it just changes how goods enter the country. The workaround every logistics consultant is now pushing sellers toward is the same one Amazon built years ago: ship in bulk via ocean freight (FCL/LCL), clear customs once as a container instead of thousands of times as parcels, then warehouse domestically and ship the "last mile" from U.S. soil. One customs entry for a container is cheap per unit; one customs entry for every $30 phone case is not.