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Shein Bet Big on Donald Trump. It Lost Big, Too
The fast-fashion giant launched an elaborate PR campaign in Washington, hiring at least three high-ranking Trump officials. But it wasn’t enough to save Shein from Trump’s tariffs.
His administration imposed punishing tariffs on Chinese imports that threaten to erode the company’s price advantage, and simultaneously moved to close a crucial trade loophole called the de minimis provision that allowed the ecommerce giant to flood the US with low-cost packages shipped into the country duty-free. Ahead of the November US presidential election, Donald Tang, an East-West dealmaker who previously failed to strike it big in Hollywood and now serves as Shein’s executive chairman, was making the rounds in Washington, dropping in to chat with China hawks skeptical of the company. The senators wrote in February 2023 to Xu Yangtian, Shein’s founder, seeking more information on the company’s alleged possible ties to supply chains in China’s Xinjiang region, where the Chinese government has been accused of widespread human rights abuses against a local Muslim minority population.
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