Biden Administration Ratchets Up Tariffs on Billions of Dollars of Chinese Goods
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The administration moved to block off a popular tariff-free path for Chinese apparel coming into the United States, and added stiff levies on electric vehicles, solar panels and other products.

Most important part of these tariffs:

"The trade rule allows packages to be shipped from foreign countries directly to consumers or businesses without paying tariffs, as long as the shipments do not exceed $800 per recipient per day. The new proposal would strip that exemption from a wide array of products and most likely have a significant impact on large importers of Chinese goods such as Shein and Temu, two online marketplaces that have become popular with American shoppers."

This trade rule being taken advantage of by Aliexpress, Temu, and Shein is the sole reason why significant amounts of Americans could still afford to buy a lot of consumer goods despite having their real wages crash year after year. This would genuinely trigger another cost of living crisis

  • MaoTheLawn [any, any]
    ·
    2 months ago

    Shein makes absolute shite, it's completely run of the mill fast fashion. Cheap, synthetic, and above all else, completely tasteless.

    People with consumption addictions buy Shein garbage to use for one night out, and repeat that week after week. I would not believe such behaviour existed had I not witnessed myself.

    Fuck knows where and how they do their labour but I would assume it's poverty wages in tough conditions somewhere in the process.

    • GaveUp [she/her]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Have you actually bought Shein clothes? They're much better quality than H&M and oftentimes every other "cheap" chain where a T-shirt is 20+ dollars and a hoodie is 50+

      Their production is the same as Western companies or even better (since a lot of textile moved out from China to south Asia and SEA) except they sell direct to westerners so they cut out all the middlemen markups

      • MaoTheLawn [any, any]
        ·
        2 months ago

        I would never buy Shein but I've felt the fabrics and it feels like ASOS. H + M is shite too. It's all shite. Not to mention the air miles and water usage. With the amount of clothes in the world there is practically no reason to not buy secondhand clothes most of the time.

        • GaveUp [she/her]
          ·
          2 months ago

          Not to mention the air miles and water usage

          It's largely the same since the other companies also have to ship overseas

          And yea, I do agree with thrifting but just me personally, 99% of all the women's clothes at a thrift shop/clothing swap do not come close to fitting me (trans 😔)

          • MaoTheLawn [any, any]
            ·
            2 months ago

            Huh. That's interesting. I wouldn't have guessed that would be a problem. Maybe you need to go thrifting somewhere with a higher population of fat people, cos I'm a pretty hefty man and there's a lot of womens clothes I can get into in thrift shops around me. Though I guess it depends on the item.

            What I can never find is anything stylish from the 70's that fit me other than jackets. People just didn't go to the gym back then, and if they did they weren't the ones with any sort of fashion inclination.

            • GaveUp [she/her]
              ·
              2 months ago

              It's not just the size, but also the silhouette. Even comparing to men, I've had and still have a very broad shoulder to waist ratio so most women's clothes in "my size" still look awful on me. There are a lot of cuts that can never look good on me unless it's custom tailored so I can only buy certain styles of tops

              But also yea, I live in the Bay Area so also just one of the fittest places if not the most in US