Inside China’s Massive Tariff-Dodging Scheme That Kills Its Competition

 In 2016, the U.S.-China trade war forced Beijing to negotiate. Tariffs crippled Chinese factories, major U.S. retailers like Walmart and Costco halted orders, and container shipments stalled. China conceded. But in 2025, when the U.S. imposed a 145 percent tariff expecting similar results, Beijing didn’t flinch. There was no panic, no economic distress, no concessions. Why? Because China had a secret card this time.

Over the past decade, China has built a decentralized export machine: more than 1 million cross-border e-commerce companies shipping directly to U.S. consumers via platforms like Amazon, Temu, and Shein. This army bypasses traditional retail channels, pays no income taxes, evades tariffs, and undercuts American businesses. Here’s how they do it — and why tariffs alone can’t stop them.

How They Game the System

Unlike in 2016, Chinese sellers no longer rely on U.S. retailers’ purchase orders. They ship container loads of goods directly to consumers, systematically undervaluing them on customs declarations.

Chinese e-commerce companies exploit U.S. customs through sophisticated tactics centered on non-resident importer (NRI) structures and delivered duty paid (DDP) clearance. These methods, often facilitated by logistics firms and customs brokers, shield sellers’ identities and minimize duties.

Here’s how it works: Brokers register NRI entities and post bonds for Chinese sellers, clearing goods and delivering them to Amazon fulfillment warehouses. They declare low container values to avoid scrutiny and sometimes misclassify goods as other items to secure a lower tariff rate. Many brokers are Amazon-affiliated (SPN, Send, Ship Track). Platforms like AMZ123.com list hundreds of such providers. Large sellers register multiple NRIs, splitting shipments among them. If one NRI is flagged, only that bond is lost — a minor business expense.

These tactics let Chinese sellers sidestep tariffs, keep prices low, and dominate visibility. As tariffs rise, so does their competitive edge.

A Tale of Two Importers

Consider what this looks like practically.

If Company A, a U.S. importer, buys a $10 product at a 10 percent tariff, it would pay a $1 duty, for a total cost of $11. At a 145 percent tariff, it would pay a $14.50 duty, for a total cost of $24.50.

If Company B, a Chinese seller, falsely declares the same $10 item as $1, at a 10 percent tariff, it would pay $0.10, for a total of $10.10. At a 145 percent tariff, it would pay $1.45, for a total of $11.45.

Company B also avoids U.S. corporate taxes by funneling profits offshore. Company A pays full tax. This isn’t just an advantage, it’s economic warfare.

This system devastates U.S. businesses. Retailers lose pricing power. Jobs in fulfillment, marketing, and customer service move offshore. Federal and state governments lose significant tax and tariff revenue. Small and mid-sized brands are crushed.

In May 2025, the Trump administration ended the $800 de minimis exemption. It disrupted small-parcel shippers, but major exporters weren’t affected. They had already switched to container loads. Their real edge isn’t de minimis; it’s systemic undervaluation and offshore profit laundering.

Proof in Plain Sight

If Chinese sellers paid 145 percent tariffs, prices would have doubled. They didn’t. Price-tracking sites like camelcamelcamel.com and keepa.com show that Chinese-made goods, such as textiles, gadgets, and pet products, still sell for $10–$20. They’re relatively unchanged.

And despite tariffs, China’s outbound container volume dropped only 35 percent in 2025, not the 80 percent collapse many expected. That’s because e-commerce exporters kept shipping and kept cheating.

How to Shut Down the Trojan Horse

To fix these problems, the United States must focus its reforms on closing these operational loopholes.

First, it should require all sellers on U.S. platforms to have a U.S.-registered entity, employer identification number, address, and bank account. Platforms must enforce real-name KYC, or “know your customer.”

Second, customs declarations should use platforms’ SKU-level sales data. Declared value must be at least 30–35 percent of the normal retail price. Deviations over 70 percent should trigger AI-driven Customs and Border Protection audits.

Third, the United States should ban NRI and DDP structures that obscure seller identity and require sellers to be the true importer of record.

Without these changes, tariffs will keep punishing honest American companies while rewarding tax dodgers abroad.

This isn’t globalization. It’s industrialized loopholes. Until the United States shuts them down, China’s Trojan horse will keep rolling through America’s gates.

For more in-depth evidence, detailed case studies, and future podcast and video content, visit digitaltrojanhorse.com.

Tim Odell is a seasoned merchant with 35 years of experience in home textiles, including retail, domestic manufacturing, and imports. For the past 19 years, he has worked at JLA Home, one of the largest home textile vendors in the U.S.

https://thefederalist.com/2025/05/09/inside-chinas-massive-tariff-dodging-scheme-that-kills-its-competition/

 

Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Omada Health Files for $100M US IPO

Omada Health Inc. filed for an initial public offering that could capitalize on the digital health care startup’s growing revenue and shrinking losses.

The San Francisco-based company had a net loss of $9.4 million on revenue of close to $55 million in the first three months of 2025, compared with a net loss of nearly $19 million on revenue of $35.1 million in the same period a year earlier, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission Friday.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-09/andreessen-horowitz-backed-omada-health-files-for-us-ipo

Colonic inflammation may be missing link between obesity and β-cell proliferation

 Researchers at the Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine have uncovered a key primary step in the hepatic ERK pathway that leads to increased insulin production.

While their previous work focused on aspects of the signaling pathway from the liver to the pancreas, this new study shows an even earlier step that begins in the colon when it is inflamed—triggered by obesity. The work has revealed a novel role the gastrointestinal tract plays in regulating glucose homeostasis.

The research is published in the journal JCI Insight.

Insulin is a hormone produced by β-cells in the pancreas. You can think of insulin as a key that unlocks cells to let glucose enter from the blood, so it can be used as energy. However, individuals with obesity can become insulin-resistant, which causes the pancreas to secrete more insulin to try to keep up. This occurs through an inter-organ neuronal signal relay originating in the hepatic ERK pathway.

Findings in the present study. Colonic inflammation and resultant intestinal barrier disruption induced hepatic ERK pathway activation, thereby promoting adaptive β-cell proliferation through the inter-organ neuronal relay system from the liver to the pancreas. The liver senses the state of obesity through colonic inflammation, and colonic inflammation serves as the first trigger of β-cell proliferation during obesity development. Credit: JCI Insight (2025). DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.183864

Due to the close relationship between obesity and the onset of diabetes, understanding this pathway in depth could help develop new ways to treat or prevent this condition.

"The goal of this study was to define how obesity in particular triggers this cascade," says Junta Imai (Tohoku University). "We theorized that it had to do with inflammation in the colon, since pro-inflammatory factors can play an excitatory role in the hepatic ERK pathway."

The researchers developed a thorough series of experiments to determine if colonic inflammation due to obesity could impact the hepatic ERK pathway. First, the research group analyzed mice without obesity that had been given a drug to cause inflammation in the colon. They found that simply causing inflammation in the colon activates the ERK pathway in the liver, stimulates the neuronal relay pathway, and increases the number of β-cells even in mice without obesity.

Next, by analyzing colons of mice in which obesity was induced by a high-calorie diet, they found that colonic inflammation, along with both hepatic ERK pathway activation and increased β-cells, occurred in these obese mice.

Activation of the hepatic ERK pathway and enhancement of β-cell proliferation during obesity development were suppressed by prevention of colonic inflammation. A. Quantitative value of hepatic ERK activation in lean mice, obese mice without suppression of colonic inflammation and obese mice with suppression of colonic inflammation. B. Beta cell mass of lean mice, obese mice without suppression of colonic inflammation and obese mice with suppression of colonic inflammation. Credit: JCI Insight (2025). DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.183864

"An exciting finding was when we tried to treat the obese mice with colon inflammation by lowering their inflammation, it actually stopped the ERK pathway in the liver from activating," explains Imai. "Despite the fact the mouse was still obese, targeting colon inflammation was exactly what was needed to alter the ERK pathway."

This research unveils a missing link in the pathway, determining that the liver senses the state of obesity through colonic inflammation, and colonic inflammation serves as the first trigger of β-cell proliferation during obesity development.

These achievements will lead to advancements in understanding the mechanism behind β-cell proliferation in order to maintain normal blood glucose levels. In addition, it is anticipated that this research may help progress the development of treatments and prevention methods for diabetes.

More information: Haremaru Kubo et al, Colonic inflammation triggers β cell proliferation during obesity development via a liver-to-pancreas interorgan mechanism, JCI Insight (2025). DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.183864

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-05-colonic-inflammation-link-obesity-cell.html

'Americans' use of illicit opioids higher than previously reported: survey'

 More Americans use illicit opioids such as fentanyl than previously estimated, highlighting the need for better methods to understand the depths of the opioid crisis, according to a new study.

A survey of American adults found that 11% reported illicit opioid use within the past 12 months and 7.5% reported use of illicitly produced fentanyl during the same period, rates that are more than 20 times higher than estimates from a large federal study that annually asks Americans about their use of illicit drugs.

Researchers say the findings add to the evidence that government counts may significantly underestimate illicit drug use and suggest that new methods are necessary to better track a key metric in addressing the nation's opioid crisis. The findings are published in the journal JAMA Health Forum.

"Estimates of illicit opioid use are rare and typically are available only years after the information is collected, limiting our ability to monitor trends on a near-term basis," said David Powell, the study's lead author and a senior economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "Our study offers a method to quickly and repeatedly monitor illicit opioid prevalence at low-cost."

Initially driven by prescription opioids, the opioid crisis in the U.S. transitioned to heroin in the early 2010s and then to illicitly-manufactured fentanyl a few years later.

As the opioid crisis continues to evolve and polysubstance deaths become increasingly common, illegally manufactured fentanyl remains involved in most overdose deaths. Despite the importance of illicit opioids in the current substance-use landscape, relatively little is known about the prevalence of illicit opioid use.

The largest ongoing study that tracks illicit drug use is the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. That study began asking about the use of illicitly manufactured fentanyl only in 2022, reporting that 0.3% of adults used the drug that year.

A number of previous studies have also reported higher rates of illicit opioid use, challenging the accuracy of the federal estimate. While researchers say the reasons for the differences are unclear, they suggest it may relate to the way the federal survey asks participants about illicit opioid use.

This includes the fact that about half of the surveys in the federal count are done in person, which may inhibit participants from reporting illicit drug use. Researchers say more work is needed to understand the reason for the differences.

Researchers from RAND and the University of Southern California surveyed 1,515 American adults during June 2024 using a large, representative online panel of Americans. Participants were asked about the use of nonprescription opioids within the past 12 months, with heroin and illicitly-manufactured fentanyl given as examples.

A unique aspect of the survey was asking participants about whether they intentionally used illicit opioids, and whether they intentionally or unintentionally used illicitly manufactured fentanyl.

Among those surveyed, 7.7% reported intentional nonprescription opioid use, with another 3.2% reporting unintentional nonprescription opioid use.

Most people who used nonprescription opioids reported illicit fentanyl use. The rate of intentional use of illicitly manufactured fentanyl was 4.9% while the rate of unintentional use of fentanyl was 2.6%.

Among respondents reporting nonprescription opioid use within the past 12 months, 39% reported their first use of opioids involved medication prescribed to them, while 36% reported their first use involved prescription opioids not prescribed to them. The remaining 25% answered that their first exposure to opioids involved illicitly manufactured opioids.

"Ultimately, the data presented here should be treated as a substantive data point for understanding and curtailing the ongoing opioid crisis," said Mireille Jacobson, the study's co-author and an economist at the University of Southern California.

"More near-real-time information is needed to evaluate not only where we are in the epidemic, but, more importantly, whether we are making progress in reining it in."

One limitation of the survey was the use of an online platform. While similar to national rates in terms of demographics, the surveyed population could be different in unobserved ways. The authors intend to re-examine their findings soon, using a survey platform more robust to these concerns.

More information: Estimates of Illicit Opioid Use in the US, JAMA Health Forum (2025). DOI: 10.1001/jamahealthforum.2025.0809

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-05-americans-illicit-opioids-higher-previously.html

Novel cancer immunotherapy offers hope for late-stage cancer

 Researchers from A*STAR Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (A*STAR IMCB), Singapore, and local biotechnology company Intra-ImmuSG have announced promising outcomes from a Phase II clinical trial of a novel cancer immunotherapy, PRL3-zumab.

Published in Cell Reports Medicine, the study shows PRL3-zumab safely slows disease progression in patients with advanced solid cancers unresponsive to existing treatments.

PRL3-zumab is a novel humanized antibody therapy uniquely designed to target PRL3, an intracellular protein highly expressed in about 80% of solid tumors but absent in healthy tissues.

Unlike conventional antibodies that only engage surface proteins, PRL3-zumab identifies cancer cells by targeting PRL3 when it transiently appears on the cell surface, flagging them for the immune system to attack and destroy through processes known as antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity and phagocytosis.

This targeted antibody-based strategy represents new hope for patients with aggressive, treatment-resistant cancers, including those who have previously exhausted standard immunotherapy options. One patient in the trial with Stage IV gastric cancer experienced disease stabilization for more than 13 months.

In comparison, patients receiving existing treatments after standard therapies typically see disease progression in about two months, highlighting PRL3-zumab's potential to significantly improve patient outcomes.

While this U.S. trial focused primarily on preventing disease progression, encouraging tumor shrinkage has been observed in other ongoing trials in Malaysia and China, suggesting PRL3-zumab's broader potential. Full results from these studies are currently being analyzed and expected to be published next year.

From laboratory discovery to clinical application

PRL3-zumab's journey began at A*STAR IMCB under Professor Qi Zeng, who first identified PRL3 in 1998, recognizing its role in cancer metastasis and resistance. Professor Zeng's research laid the foundation for the development of PRL3-zumab and led to the establishment of Intra-ImmuSG, an A*STAR spin-off company, to advance the therapy clinically.

The Phase II trial enrolled 51 patients with various advanced-stage solid cancers. PRL3-zumab demonstrated a favorable safety profile, with no serious drug-related side-effects reported. The trial employed a novel analytical method called the Single Evaluable Patient Single Cohort (SEPSC) design, rigorously comparing each patient's progression-free survival on PRL3-zumab against their previous treatments and historical benchmarks.

What makes PRL3-zumab particularly groundbreaking is its ability to target intracellular proteins that have long been considered "undruggable" by antibodies. This previously unexplored strategy in cancer treatment could potentially open new avenues for immunotherapy approaches, offering a viable "rescue therapy" for patients who do not respond to existing treatments.

"PRL3-zumab represents a true bench-to-bedside success story. This research product has already benefited many late-stage cancer patients and offers new hope to those with rare, aggressive cancers, helping to extend both survival and quality of life in patients who had run out of options," said Professor Qi Zeng, Senior Principal Scientist, A*STAR IMCB; and Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Intra-ImmuSG Pte Ltd.

More information: David J. Park et al, The PRL3-zumab paradigm: A multicenter, single-dose-level phase 2 basket clinical trial design of an unconventional cancer immunotherapy, Cell Reports Medicine (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2025.102120

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-05-cancer-immunotherapy-late-stage-patients.html

Fat-rich fluid found to fuel immune failure in ovarian cancer

 New research led by Irish scientists has uncovered how lipid-rich fluid in the abdomen, known as ascites, plays a central role in weakening the body's immune response in advanced ovarian cancer. The findings offer new insights into immune suppression in ovarian cancer and open promising avenues for future immunotherapy approaches.

Over 70% of patients with ovarian cancer are diagnosed at an advanced stage, often presenting with large volumes of ascites. This ascites fluid not only supports the spread of cancer throughout the abdominal cavity but also significantly impairs the body's immune defenses.

Understanding how ascites affects the immune system is important for developing better treatments that use the immune system to fight cancer.

In this study, researchers from Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin explored how ascites disrupts immune cell function, with a particular focus on natural killer (NK) cells and T cells, which are key players in the body's ability to eliminate tumors.

By analyzing the contents of ascites fluid from ovarian cancer patients, the team identified a group of fat molecules called phospholipids as key drivers of this immune dysfunction.

Dr. Karen Slattery, Research Fellow at the Trinity Translational Medicine Institute, is the first author of the research article published in Science Immunology.

She said, "We found that these lipids interfere with NK cell metabolism and suppress their ability to kill cancer cells. Crucially, we also discovered that blocking the uptake of these phospholipids into NK cells using a specific receptor blocker can restore their anti-tumor activity, which offers a compelling new target for therapeutic intervention."

"This work adds a critical piece to the puzzle of why ovarian cancer is so aggressive and has such poor outcomes. While the immune system is naturally equipped to detect and destroy cancer cells, this function is switched off in many individuals with ovarian cancer, and we now know that this is in part due to the fat-rich environment created by ascites."

Prof. Lydia Lynch, formerly based in Trinity and now in Princeton University, is the senior author of the research article.

She said, "This study marks a significant advancement in ovarian cancer research, identifying a new mechanism underpinning immune failure and laying the foundation for new therapies that could restore immune function in these patients.

"By targeting the fat-induced suppression of immune cells, future treatments could empower the body's own immune defenses to fight back and, in doing so, improve outcomes for ovarian cancer patients."

More information: Karen Slattery et al, Uptake of lipids from ascites drives NK cell metabolic dysfunction in ovarian cancer, Science Immunology (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciimmunol.adr4795. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.adr4795

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-05-fat-rich-fluid-fuel-immune.html

US opens national security probe into imported commercial jets, engines

 The U.S. Commerce Department said Friday it has opened a national security investigation into the import of commercial aircraft, jet engines and parts.

The investigation, which was opened on May 1 but not publicly disclosed previously, seeks public comment within three weeks on a series of comments on "the impact of foreign government subsidies and predatory trade practices on the competitiveness of the commercial aircraft and jet engine industry."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-opens-national-security-probe-210602918.html