Much of press bias is in the way the headline is written.
More people read the headline than read the story itself; it’s sometimes quite effective for a biased news source to write a relatively fair story if they can put their spin into the title.
Of course, the stories usually aren’t fair either.
Today’s example is from Reuters.
Reuters’ headline reads “As Trump Moves to Tax Small Parcels, Some Retailers Give Up on U.S.”
The article is written to give the impression that the issue at hand applies equally to small British and Canadian exporters, when in fact the problem is primarily with Chinese exporters. But it’s the headline that’s most deceptive. To recognize the bias, you need to know some background.
All normal importers – retailers, wholesalers, every company from sole-proprietorships to national chains with hundreds of storefronts – naturally pay import duty when they import goods from their foreign vendors. Clothing, toys, hand tools, crafts, home decor – no matter what you import, your shipment goes through US Customs for the clearance process and the payment of import duties.
With one exception: The Chinese online retailers who take advantage of the De Minimis entry exception known as Section 321 and mail it straight to your house.
Governments usually believe that it isn’t worth processing an import entry on a tiny shipment of very low value, on which the duty collection would just be a couple of dollars. So, there has always been a provision allowing very small, low value shipments to skip the clearance process, making them duty-free. Businesses that normally import shipping container quantities of products for their stores or factories, properly paying duty on them, should be able to receive an occasional $10 free sample from their vendors without spending $150 on processing it.
Unfortunately, Temu, Shein, and similar Asian companies have built their entire business models on taking unfair advantage of this exception, never paying duty on anything, just shipping into every country at low enough declared values that allow them to sneak in duty-free. (Some countries set that level at a $40 value, some at $50 or $100. The USA generously raised this limit to $800 per shipment a decade ago, and we are now regretting it.)
None of these countries ever dreamed that a Chinese government-affiliated company would take advantage of this program to undercut all domestic competition this way. These Chinese advertisers now ship hundreds of millions of shipments duty-free under this program, making it absolutely impossible for real brick-and-mortar stores in Western economies to compete with them.
This problem has been known for a couple of years now, and numerous countries are tackling it, each in their own way, either by lowering the value limit or reducing the kinds of shipments that qualify for duty-free treatment. The Biden-Harris regime, in fact, had publicly recognized the problem; they were just slow to act. The Trump-Vance administration acted quickly, and is plugging the loophole now.
The purpose of these corrections isn’t to unfairly tax another business, but to remove an unfair tax break that a certain business model just doesn’t deserve.
There’s nothing we can do about the fact that an online merchant can save money on overhead, by not spending money on a brick and mortar building, or staff or utilities or inventory. Even without the duty loophole of these low value shipments, these Chinese bottom-feeders will still be able to charge less than American retail stores.
But it’s not fair to our American retailers and their employees – or to our friends the European retail employees, or South American retail employees, or any other retail employees in the world – to continue to allow these Chinese online direct mail shippers to evade the same tax burden that all other importers have on the merchandise they sell.
If we believe in any sort of equality under the law, we must admit that imported goods should be assessed the same duty. Just because the Chinese shipper has a friend at the Beijing politburo, that shouldn’t get him out of paying the same duty on an imported dress or shirt or toy that your local retailer must.
So – now that we’ve considered the background – how does that Reuters article headline hold up under scrutiny?
“As Trump Moves to Tax Small Parcels, Some Retailers Give Up on US.”
- Well, their headline gives the impression that President Trump is adding a new product to the tax rolls, when in fact, he’s not; he’s really just removing a destructive loophole.
- And their headline gives the impression that President Trump is acting unilaterally, when in fact the administration is joining many other nations in a global effort to defend against this shared problem.
- And the headline gives the impression that President Trump is taking action to hurt retail, when in fact this step is designed to protect American retail from a foreign predator.
- And the headline gives the impression that the net result is bad for the United States, when in fact anyone can tell the result – the protection of American retailers from unfair foreign competition – is a net benefit for the United States.
The retail sector is critical to America. Millions work for retailers, big and small. Retailers populate our downtowns and our malls. They serve as shopping districts to bring balance alongside restaurants and bars and theaters. They provide first jobs and part time work experience for teenagers and adults alike, and they support the transportation sector through distribution centers and truckers and retail consolidators.
Retail is a key part of the foundation of the American economy, and this rational, lawful, and simple measure – the protection of American retail from predatory Chinese shippers – is critical to the sector’s very survival.
And you’d never know that from Reuters’ headline, would you?
Copyright 2025 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance trainer and consultant. President of the Ethnic American Council in the 1980s and Chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party in the 1990s, his book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel), his political satires on the Biden-Harris administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), and his first nonfiction book, “Current Events and the Issues of Our Age,” are all available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.
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