The White House issued two Executive Orders on March 2, 2025 amending the February 1, 2025 Executive Orders Imposing Duties to Address the Situation at Our Southern Border and Imposing Duties to Address the Flow of Illicit Drugs Across Our Northern Border (see Thompson Hine Update of February 3, 2025). The March 2 amendments for Mexico and for Canada indicate that products of those two countries using the Section 321 de minimis duty-free exemption (a.k.a., the “$800 rule”) may continue to do so but the exemption will cease to be available upon notice “by the Secretary of Commerce to the President that adequate systems are in place to fully and expeditiously process and collect tariff revenue applicable pursuant to subsection (a) of this section for covered articles otherwise eligible for de minimis treatment.” This language aligns with the amendment made on February 5, 2025 regarding the 10% tariffs imposed on China that followed an outcry from the trade and the United States Postal Service (USPS) among others, that customs clearance processes were not set up to handle the large volumes of de minimis shipments.
