The response from Shein didn’t straight dispute the reporting. It outlined the corporate’s regulatory compliance insurance policies and third-party auditing procedures, at occasions counting on almost indecipherable jargon. It said, for instance, that Shein developed a “proprietary materials traceability info administration system,” to watch its provide chains. (The letter was signed by Lin, not Xu, who maintains an exceedingly low profile. The Wall Avenue Journal has referred to him as “the world’s most nameless CEO.”)
Greer’s work for a Chinese language firm seems at odds with the darkish imaginative and prescient he has articulated of Beijing’s intentions to remake the worldwide order and the way it makes use of worldwide commerce to perform these ends. A month after Shein despatched the letter to lawmakers, Greer testified earlier than the Home Methods and Means Committee on the US-China commerce relationship, telling lawmakers that China offered an “existential” menace to the US. Beijing seeks to “dominate world manufacturing and expertise to safe CCP leverage and management over the worldwide economic system and overseas governments,” he mentioned, referring to the Chinese language Communist Social gathering. Final 12 months, he referred to as for a raft of modifications to the US commerce relationship with China, together with ending the de minimis provision.
De minimis, which permits for packages valued beneath $800 to enter the US duty-free and with restricted oversight, exploded in recognition throughout the Covid pandemic. Customs and Border Safety processed roughly 4 million de minimis shipments a day in 2024, up from 2.8 million the earlier 12 months, the overwhelming majority of which originated in China. Total, the company says de minimis shipments account for 92 % of all cargo getting into the nation. Shein mentioned within the 2023 letter to lawmakers that almost all of its packages enter the US beneath the supply.
Adam Savit, director of the China Coverage Initiative on the America First Coverage Institute suppose tank, likens Shein’s liberal use of de minimis to broader points he sees with Beijing’s strategy to commerce. “The issue is China’s abuse of a worldwide commerce system that was constructed on the belief that each one gamers would abide by sure guidelines,” Savit says. For instance, China doesn’t lengthen the identical de minimis advantages to the US. Trump “abhors lack of reciprocity, and the loophole is among the most excessive examples,” Savit says.
Shein has already begun elevating its costs in response to Trump’s commerce insurance policies. It’s doubtless that transport occasions will improve too, not only for Shein prospects however for anybody buying low-cost items from China. “As a result of the administration desires to discourage imports from China, you’ll pay responsibility, and it’d take longer to get cleared,” says John Leonard, former deputy government assistant commissioner at Customs and Border Safety. “It’s the execution of a commerce barrier.”
In January 2024, Shein introduced on longtime retail lobbyist Kent Knutson, beforehand the top of Residence Depot’s Washington operation, a rent that marked the beginning of the corporate’s extra dramatic rightward flip. Three months later, monetary disclosures present, Patel, now the FBI director, started working as a marketing consultant for an entity within the Cayman Islands referred to as Elite Depot—the mother or father group of Shein. Patel’s cope with the ecommerce big was structured in an uncommon manner: He was compensated for 9 months of labor with inventory valued at between $1 million and $5 million.
