Commissioners Peter A. Feldman and Douglas Dziak of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a joint statement on Sept. 3 to call for investigation into Shein, Temu and other foreign-owned firms with overseas suppliers.
The stated purpose is to determine whether these companies are abiding by the Consumer Product Safety Act, which was enacted in 1972 and designed to anticipate and prevent “unreasonable risks of injury.” The commissioners “expect agency staff to investigate the companies’ safety and compliance controls; relationships with third-party sellers and consumers; and any representations they make when products are imported.”
The staff would in particular be looking into the companies’ “focus on low-value direct-to-consumer – sometimes called de minimis – shipments” and the difficulty of enforcing the law on them.
As we reported in March, the US House of Representatives raised similar objections to the de minimis“loophole” in June 2023 with an interim report titled Fast Fashion and the Uyghur Genocide. The provision in question is found in the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, which amends the Tariff Act of 1930.
Feldman and Dziak were nominated respectively by Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Some in France, singling out Shein, have sought to “render fast-fashion out of fashion” with a system of incentives and penalties. This was laid out in a legislative bill in March, as we then reported, but all French bills have been in a state of suspension since June 9, when French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the Parliament.
