Temu on Friday said it has stopped shipments of cheap goods from China to the US as President Trump axed a trade loophole that allowed the fast-fashion giant to sidestep tariffs and customs checks.
Its US website has shifted to offer only what it calls “local” items – or products that were shipped overseas in bulk and stored in US warehouses in a mad dash to beat Trump’s tariffs.
“All sales in the US are now handled by locally based sellers, with orders fulfilled from within the country,” a Temu spokesperson told The Post in a statement.
Temu said it has stopped shipments of goods from China to the US as President Trump ended a popular trade loophole.julien leiv – stock.adobe.com
The end of the de minimis exemption is a massive blow to Temu, which is owned by China-based PDD Holdings, and rival Shein, both of which used the loophole to send packages worth less than $800 into the US duty-free.
As the two Chinese e-commerce giants have exploded in popularity, thanks to their cheap, speedy deliveries of $5 shirts and $10 dresses, so has usage of the de minimis rule.
A massive 1.36 billion shipments made their way into the US under the exemption in 2024, up from 637 million just four years earlier, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
But Trump ended the exemption for goods made in China and Hong Kong after midnight on Friday.
Temu had been gradually preparing for the tariff crunch, last week placing “local” goods at the top of the page for US customers and announcing plans to raise prices.
An employee packaging goods for Temu at a clothing factory in Guangzhou.AFP via Getty Images
It also started slapping products from overseas with specific “import charges.”
Along with facing new tariffs and a hefty 145% rate on China, Temu and Shein packages would have to go through customs without the exemption, which could lead to delayed shipments.
Customs officials would need to randomly search an additional 1 million packages per day – the amount of items that the two companies sent to the US daily, according to The Wall Street Journal.
About a year ago, as it prepared for the loophole to end, Temu started recruiting US sellers who were importing their own inventory from China, according to the Journal.
Temu has been recruiting US sellers who import their own inventory from China.AA+W – stock.adobe.com Temu is still actively recruiting these US sellers, a spokesperson told The Post.
Temu’s products were 20% to 30% cheaper than those sold by US competitors like Amazon – but the site is set to lose much of that price advantage, especially as its stockpile in the US dwindles.
New Yorkers are getting robbed blind — because state politicians are doing deals with our money in the dark.
On Monday Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that she and Albany’s top two legislative leaders had agreed on how much to tax New Yorkers and how much the state will spend this fiscal year, which started April 1.
From the smattering of information available — days later, the details have still not been publicly released — the deal will necessitate additional tax hikes months from now that could trigger an economic death spiral for the state and its largest city.
On Monday Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that she and Albany’s top two legislative leaders had agreed on how much to tax New Yorkers and how much the state will spend this fiscal year.AP
Here’s the kicker: This is a back-room deal, worked out in secrecy by an all-Democrat troika: Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.
None of the other 211 members of the legislature was permitted to listen in, let alone participate.
The press? Locked out, perched uncomfortably on the state Capitol’s marble stairs.
Without the benefit of open debate, New Yorkers are paying through the nose: Albany will spend a staggering $254 billion in the coming year.
That’s more than it costs to run Florida and Texas combined, even though New York has 33 million fewer people to serve.
This is the way New York has managed its spending for decades. I witnessed it myself as lieutenant governor 30 years ago.
Then as now, it prevented our lawmakers from doing the right thing. They’re still getting sidelined today.
Spending in the budget is “reckless. It’s out of control,” Republican State Sen. Tom O’Mara wrote last month — but his voice isn’t heard.
In fact, no Republican was even allowed in the room.
At some point in the coming days, nine or more bills will be hurriedly printed and put on each lawmaker’s desk, along with a “message of necessity” from Hochul requiring it to be voted on within hours, even in the middle of the night. Unreal.
Lawmakers, no more than party puppets, will vote on the bills with no debate.
This is not representative government.
It’s not even constitutional: The New York state Constitution requires the Legislature to have three days to read a bill before voting on it.
And yet that rule gets waived, year after year, with no justification.
Americans fought a revolution against taxation without representation. New Yorkers should not put up with it in their own state Capitol.
On her first day as governor, taking over after Andrew Cuomo was chased out of office amid scandal, Hochul promised “a new era of transparency.”
Why elect 213 legislators and pay them the highest salary of state lawmakers anywhere in America — a cool $142,000 a year — only to lock them out of the most important decisions, leaving them to wander the Capitol halls killing time?
Monday night, Hochul put out a press release boasting that her budget deal cuts taxes — a half-truth at best: It also hikes payroll mobility taxes on large employers, and extends an income-tax surcharge that had been scheduled to sunset.
An open budget process would allow New Yorkers to know the truth — in advance — instead of depending on politicians’ weasel words after it’s too late.
This warped budgeting is so entrenched that we used to call it by a nickname: “three men in a room.”
That phrase may no longer apply, but the reality of it remains.
Thirty years ago one of the “three men,” Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, wrote a spirited defense of the back-room process in his memoir, claiming it worked pretty well.
Truth is, it doesn’t work. New York is one of the worst-governed states in the nation.
What’s especially worrisome is that Hochul and her fellow deal-makers refuse to downsize the budget now to accommodate expected cuts in federal funding and possible downturns in tax revenue caused by financial market turmoil.
“Democrats keep warning about the thunderstorms while driving with the top down,” as Ed Ra, ranking Republican on the Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee, put it.
An open budgeting process would invite more caveats like Ra’s, and more critics like O’Mara. It would force New York’s leadership to grapple with reality-based objections.
Instead, three top Democrats get to whistle in the dark.
Count on the governor to come back in a month or two proposing tax hikes — another nail in our state’s coffin.
New Yorkers need to demand a real say in how they are governed, and their elected representatives must find the courage do the same. Put an end to rule by the three stooges.
Betsy McCaughey served as lieutenant governor of New York from 1995 to 1998 and is co-founder of the Committee to Save Our City.
Jew-bashing performer Kehlani is set to take the stage at a taxpayer-funded Pride event in Central Park this summer — a week afterher show at Cornell University was canceledfollowing a massive uproar.
The City Park’s Foundation — a taxpayer-funded organization — invited the controversial singer to perform at the city’s Summer Stage series in June for a benefit concert advertised as “PRIDE WITH KEHLANI.”
The singer notoriously posted a music video last spring that begins with “Long live the Intifada” — a phrase that is widely criticized as implying violence towards the Jewish community.
Kehlani’s performance at Cornell was canceled after the singer’s music video started with the phrase, “Long live the Intifada.”Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
“Long live the Intifada” is widely criticized as implying violence toward the Jewish community.Kehiani/Youtube
The announcement prompted Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres to send a letter to City officials slamming their decision to feature the divisive musician.
The letter, addressed to Mayor Eric Adams and head of the City Parks Foundation Heather Lubov, along with Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, outlined some of Kehlani’s particularly hateful remarks.
“Kehlani has a history of hate, marked by rhetoric calling for an ‘Intifada Revolution,’ the ‘dismantling of Israel,’ and the ‘eradication of Zionism,’” the South Bronx representative wrote.
The City Park’s Foundation — a taxpayer-funded organization — invited Kehlani to perform at the city’s Summer Stage series in June for a benefit concert.Central Park
“America’s largest city has no business subsidizing or sanitizing antisemitism at taxpayer expense,” he added on X. “Stop mainstreaming the extremes and inviting those who invite violence.”
The singer was set to headline Cornell’s end-of-the-year Slope Day celebration which drew backlash from Jewish groups on campus and led to Kehlani being disinvited.AP
Members of New York’s Jewish community have also expressed serious concerns about the city’s decision to showcase Kehlani.
“Utilizing city taxpayer money to support hate speech is unacceptable,” said Councilwoman Julie Menin (D-Manhattan), who sits on the Jewish Caucus. “These concerts should be celebrating inclusiveness and the great diversity of our city, not demonizing any group and calling for its eradication,” she said.
Mark Treyger, CEO of Jewish Community Relations Council of New York also expressed his dismay with the city’s decision.
“An individual who refers to Jews as the `f–cking scum of the earth’ and calls for their annihilation has no business performing in the heart of New York City, which happens to be home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. Period,” Treyger said.
The mayor and the city parks department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On Thursday, the CDC publishedopens in a new tab or window three reports about recent clusters of medetomidine cases in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh.
In Chicago, health officials last May were puzzled by a surge in overdoses. The patients had taken fentanyl, but the overdose-reversing drug naloxone (Narcan) didn't seem to work. After an investigation, the city's health department reported 12 confirmed cases of medetomidine-involved overdose -- the largest to date -- as well as more than 160 probable or suspected cases including a possible death.
The two other reports focused on medetomidine withdrawal in patients in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
In Philadelphia, medetomidine was detected in 72% of illegal opioid samples tested late last year, overtaking xylazine, which has complicated the U.S. response to the opioid crisis.
More than 160 people were hospitalized for an unusual version of fentanyl withdrawal that was resistant to medications that helped against fentanyl and xylazine. However, another drug -- dexmedetomidine -- did work, health officials said.
Pittsburgh reported 10 similar cases during a similar time period.
Across the different classes of heart failure (HF) drugs, beta-blockers stood out for their association with limb loss in patients with concomitant chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI), according to an observational analysis.
From a large database of de-identified electronic health records as recent as late 2024, investigators found that patients with chronic HF and the most severe form of peripheral artery disease (PAD) had varying risks of major and minor amputations (above and below the ankle, respectively) depending on the drugs they used:
Mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists: reduced risks of both major (HR 0.65, 95% CI 0.57-0.73) and minor amputations (HR 0.87, 95% CI 0.78-0.97)
SGLT2 inhibitors: lower risk of major amputation (HR 0.59, 95% CI 0.50-0.70) and no relationship with minor amputation (HR 0.97, 95% CI 0.84-1.11)
Angiotensin receptor blockers: lower risk of major amputation (HR 0.82, 95% CI 0.74-0.90) and no relationship with minor amputation (HR 0.97, 95% CI 0.89-1.06)
Angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitors: no significant relationship with major (HR 0.80, 95% CI 0.63-1.01) or minor amputations (HR 1.12, 95% CI 0.93-1.36)
Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors: no significant relationship with major (HR 0.97, 95% CI 0.88-1.08) or minor amputations (HR 0.99, 95% CI 0.90-1.09)
Beta-blockers: increased risks of both major (HR 1.81, 95% CI 1.56-2.10) and minor amputations (HR 1.60, 95% CI 1.40-1.82)
Patrick Kwaah, MBChB, a resident at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, cautioned that the beta-blocker findings conflicted with other research: some studies have shown no link to major amputation, and there was a Taiwanese groupopens in a new tab or window that reported reduced amputation among beta-blocker users with type 2 diabetes and PAD.
Kwaah noted that the amputation risks were estimated based on just over 2.5 years of follow-up on average in the TriNetX database. The analysis was conducted using propensity matching to create comparable cohorts of users and non-users of each medication class. "The results should be considered hypothesis-generating owing to the observational design," he said. "Prospective randomized trials are needed to confirm these findings."
In any case, the retrospective study gained points for analyzing a broader range of medications than before and for providing reassurance on SGLT2 inhibitors in particular, said session moderator Herb Aronow, MD, MPH, of Henry Ford Health in Detroit.
In 2020, the FDA removed the black box warningopens in a new tab or window from canagliflozin (Invokana) that had described an increased risk of lower limb amputation with use of the drug. The risk of amputation, regulators found, was lower than previously described in CANVAS, especially when appropriately monitored and when considering the heart- and kidney-related benefits of canagliflozin shown in trials like CREDENCEopens in a new tab or window.
Regarding the apparent protection from major amputations reported here, there is evidence that "dapagliflozin [Farxiga] enhances tissue oxygenation, particularly in PAD patients with diabetes, which may in part help reduce lower extremity amputation rates," Kwaah noted.
Aronow added that "the data have convinced me that if there's any risk [from SGLT2 inhibitors], it's minimal and outweighed by the benefits."
As for the observed link between beta-blockers and lower limb amputation, Aronow suggested confounding by indication and the possibility that beta-blockers helped people live longer so they had more time to accrue amputation events.
Disclosures
Kwaah and Aronow had no disclosures.
Primary Source
Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions
Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowKwaah PA, et al "Association of heart failure guideline-directed medical therapy agents and rates of amputation in patients with chronic heart failure and chronic limb-threatening ischemia" SCAI 2025.
