Your next Temu haul just got a little more expensive.

The tariffs Donald Trump put into place on February 1 eliminated a loophole that Chinese companies used to send small packages to the US duty-free. In recent years the loophole, called the de minimis exemption, has fueled the growth of Chinese e-commerce companies like Temu and Shein. Around 1.4 billion de minimis packages were sent to the US in fiscal year 2024, double the number shipped in 2022, Bloomberg reported.

The de minimis exemption was put into place by the Tariff Act of 1930, and was intended to allow US travelers to mail goods home from other countries without paying tariffs, the New York Times reported. The duty-free threshold was $200 until 2016, when Congress raised it to $800.

Both the Biden and the second Trump administrations sought to eliminate de minimis over competitive concerns with China and fears that it could facilitate the illegal drug trade. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, ending the de minimis loophole could cost US consumers $11 billion to $13 billion.

Amazon could benefit from the end of de minimis, as its “competitors will be negatively affected,” NYU business professor Yannis Bakos told the New York Times. Recently, Amazon has been trying to woo customers away from Temu and Shein with Amazon Haul, its new mobile-only storefront where everything costs less than $20. But Temu seems to have anticipated the end of de minimis, according to Bloomberg, as it’s engaging in more bulk shipping.

Click here to keep reading.—CV

White Lotus fans need to catch up on an earlier Mike White show, because it’s coming true over at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In 2011’s Enlightened, a moving tale of recovery and a whip-smart corporate drama, troublemaking employees were relegated to the de facto IT department in a grimy fluorescent-lit basement. The message was clear. We can’t fire you, but we can make you sit here and do a different job instead.

The SEC must’ve been making its way through its watchlist.

Last week, the agency transferred Jorge Tenreiro, a former head of litigation who oversaw crypto exchange lawsuits, to, you guessed it, the de facto IT department. Well, IT department, or see also: “an office that maintains the agency’s computer systems” slash “the agency’s office of information technology.”

The SEC “also reassigned a lawyer who was involved in writing controversial accounting guidance that made it hard for banks to safeguard crypto for clients,” according to the Journal.

For more on the SEC’s personnel transfers, click here.—NP

Job openings fell in December in the biggest decline since October 2023, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday—although the dip coincided with a small increase in new hires, the layoff rate was flat, and there are still more openings than job seekers.

The Federal Reserve will likely see this as a sign of a slowing labor market, according to Conrad DeQuadros, a senior economic advisor at Brean Capital. The decline of 556,000 openings, to 7.6 million, signals “that the labor market has cooled from a previously overheated state,” DeQuadros told Reuters.

December’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) adds another indicator to the “generally solid labor market” column, according to Cory Stahle, an economist at Indeed. “While hires and quits rates remain historically low, their stabilization in recent months may be signaling an inflection point,” he wrote.

On the other hand. While new hires rose 89,000 in December, “they were, however, down 325,000 over the year,” Reuters reported. It’s taking job-seekers longer to get those offers, too, MarketWatch reported, and long-term unemployment saw a “sharp increase.”

Click here for more on December’s job numbers.—GD