This article examines how de minimis rules in cross-border e-commerce may generate economic and societal harms that are not fully captured by traditional trade-facilitation frameworks. These harms include revenue leakage and competition distortion. It argues that when de minimis thresholds are applied to high-volume platform-mediated trade, they can create enforcement blind spots and compliance asymmetries, as illustrated by challenges associated with monitoring high-volume low-value parcels. These effects place competitive pressure on domestic industries and are particularly significant for revenue-constrained developing economies. Recent enforcement concerns in the United States, including the growing use of low-value consignments to circumvent customs controls, have brought these issues into sharper focus and prompted renewed policy attention. On this analysis, this article suggests that the continued application of de minimis thresholds in their current form warrants reconsideration. Policy debate may therefore move toward elimination or, more realistically targeted redesign. Such redesign could rely on risk-based approaches, greater platform involvement, and improved access to transaction-level data as practical means of balancing trade facilitation with effective enforcement.
Global Trade and Customs Journal