There seems to be no shortage of issues popping up of late which have direct effects on the sales of product coming into the United States. Recently, the Trump administration ended the De minimis Tariff Exemption that had been in place for several decades. “De minimis” is a Latin phrase meaning “about minimal things” or “trifling,” and it refers to something so small or insignificant that the law will not consider it. The term is used in various legal and tax contexts, such as the de minimis fringe benefit rule in tax law, which excludes small, infrequent benefits from taxable income, and the de minimis rule for imports, which allows low-value goods to enter a country duty-free.
The U.S. de minimis exemption started in 1938 when the Tariff Act of 1930 was enacted to allow low-value imports (initially $1 or less) to enter the US duty-free, saving the government the expense of collecting small amounts of revenue. The threshold was raised over time, most recently to $800 in 2015, but the exemption was ended for many goods on August 29, 2025. Needless to say it now costs quite a bit more to order goods from overseas and is designed to make online shopping from overseas a thing of the past. Some countries have even halted overseas shipments to the US until it becomes more clear who is responsible now for paying these duties.
Additionally, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held Friday that Trump overstepped his presidential authority when he imposed levies on virtually every country in the world as part of his April 2nd “liberation day” announcement. Before court action, Trump’s tariffs were set to affect roughly 69% of U.S. goods imports, according to the Tax Foundation. If struck down, the duties would impact just roughly 16%.
The ruling injects a heavy dose of uncertainty into a central tenet of Trump’s economic agenda, which has rattled the global economy since April. For now, the appeals court ruling states the duties on goods from most countries — as high as 50% for a few countries — will stay in effect until Oct. 14, to allow the Trump administration time to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Thus far, the tariffs have been applied to incoming product this summer but could be halted or even rolled back to pre-“Liberation Day” levels should the Trump Administration fail to overturn this decision. President Trump maintains that the tariffs are still in effect despite what the Appellate Court says, which could lead to the Supreme Court having to step in to settle the matter.
Needless to say, product manufactured in both Bangladesh and China — the two principal regions where diecast collectibles are presently made — may no longer be affected by Trump’s retaliatory tariffs, meaning both wholesale and retail prices could well be lowered significantly for at least the foreseeable future. Thus far we haven’t heard back from our suppliers as to what they plan to do and when and how it will impact our business.