Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

There was chatter about this in one of the NYC subreddits over the weekend.

Apparently ending the de minimus exemption is closing the grey market for e.g. sunscreen; places that used to sell Japanese sunscreens on American shelves no longer are.

There's a frustratingly long list of goods that the US decided to put requirements on in previous generations, and then stopped maintaining. Sunscreen is one; other countries have invented sunscreens that feel better on your skin than the old styles, but aren't yet approved in the US. Motorcycle helmets are another. You may have seen the MIPS system - the yellow slipliner that's become popular in bicycle helmets. Scientists have realized that rotational impact leads to concussions and similar brain damage, but prior helmets only protected against naive impacts. Europe now requires helmets to protect against rotational damage. The US requires that manufacturers self-assert that they meet a very old standard that ignores rotational impact. They do not recognize Europe's new standard.

Closing these de minimus exemptions is making it harder for discerning consumers to buy higher quality goods than are currently available in the US right now. Protectionists are going to see this as a win.

More background on helmet standards:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BUyp3HX8cY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76yu124i3Bo

I don't understand the argument that it's bad that the government is suppressing grey markets in goods that aren't approved in the US.

I get it from a selfish point of view, as in I want a particular helmet and I think the design is safer, so I'm upset when I can't have it at the price I want it. I don't understand it as a political argument. If our government isn't meant to do anything, shut it down entirely. Don't have processes and subvert them so everybody can do what they want when they want.

Who would you vote for to get rules broken whenever they stop you from doing what you want, and why would anybody else vote for that person?

That being said, I deeply understand that the science and regulation around any sort of helmeting in the US (also in the case of motorcycles) is completely compromised by the people who sell helmets. The way you fix that is by fixing regulatory processes, not making rules easier to break for connected, smart, wealthy people. If you think fixing regulatory processes is an absurd, naïve impossibility, shut the government down and stop complaining about trivialities.