The pause is only temporary. It was issued this morning through an executive order, which says that the de minimis exemption will be removed again when the Secretary of Commerce notifies the administration that “adequate systems are in place to fully and expediently process and collect tariff revenue.”

One of the major issues facing implementation of the tariffs was processing and collecting fees on the vast number of packages that were no longer safe under the exemption. The executive order seems to acknowledge the need for process and staffing changes, halting the de minimis removal until at least some of the shipping chaos can be contained.