Some experts put that number much higher. ![]() By fiscal year 2022, that number was up to 685.1 million. ![]() In fiscal year 2018, 410.5 million de minimis packages were sent. These small shipments have exploded in frequency. In fact, it’s often been characterized as the “Amazon loophole.”Ĭhinese shippers have been known to package shipments in separate boxes to keep under the $800 threshold, or send goods to distribution centers just outside the United States, where packages are broken up to get under the de minimis threshold and sent into the country. Why did this change happen? Because e-commerce firms, primarily Amazon, wanted to be able to bring in goods from China to their warehouses or even directly to their customers without any taxes or tariffs. It was not the original intention of de minimis rules to build a parallel, off-the-books customs system, used often for illegal goods shipping. China’s de minimis value is less than $10. There are only two countries in the world that have a higher de minimis value than the U.S. In 2016, that nominal, or de minimis, value, went up from $200 to $800. if you got some trinkets from abroad that are of a nominal value, you don’t have to submit them to customs officials. Anyone who has flown on international travel is familiar with this from their declaration card when they return to the U.S. Section 321 of the Tariff Act of 1930 allows for goods under a certain value to be shipped into the U.S. That’s because of something called the “de minimis” rule. rolling back restrictions on China’s forensic police institute.īut while Chinese cooperation is welcome, the bigger problem is that the vast majority of fentanyl chemicals sent from China are not inspected at all. and China agreed in principle to a deal where China would limit the flow of fentanyl in exchange for the U.S. The tiniest of measurement errors can lead to an overdose, and black-market drug dealers are not exactly known for their responsible metrology.Ĭustoms enforcement officials have begun to charge Chinese firms that produce and ship these precursor chemicals (and produced fentanyl as well), and President Biden, in a summit earlier this month, pressured Chinese President Xi Jinping on the matter. But fentanyl is orders of magnitude more dangerous than heroin thanks to its extreme potency, which is a principal cause of the overdose epidemic. Now, of course this would not halt opioid addiction or use by itself traditional smuggled heroin would likely fill in the gap. Without these raw materials, much of the fentanyl trade would be stopped. China is the source of most of the chemical compounds that cartels use to make fentanyl in illicit drug labs. ![]() have historically targeted supply through a so-called “war on drugs.” But reducing the amount of fentanyl on the street need not involve military-style operations in Central and South America. It is the leading killer of Americans aged 18 to 49, and it has devastated communities across the country.ĭrug enforcement efforts in the U.S. Two-thirds of the 110,000-plus overdose deaths in America last year were due to fentanyl. We know that fentanyl deaths rose 279 percent from 2016 to 2022. To wit: Here is the story of how Amazon and other retailers are facilitating the epidemic of deaths from fentanyl. One of the more frustrating things about public policy in the United States is how the dominance of corporate interests makes simple reforms that could save thousands of lives impossible. ![]() A bag of 4-fluoro isobutyryl fentanyl seized in a drug raid is displayed at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Testing and Research Laboratory in Sterling, Virginia, August 9, 2016.
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