[NEW YORK, MEXICO CITY] DHL Group will look to hire workers in locations such as Malaysia if US President Donald Trump removes a tax exemption for lower-value shipments, DHL Express chief executive officer John Pearson said.
The logistics industry was whipsawed in February by an executive order that cancelled a longstanding exemption on imports from China worth US$800 or less, known as the de minimis rule. The exemption has been exploited by Chinese retailers such as Temu and Shein to expand US sales.
However, the executive order, which targeted the more than a billion small-value e-commerce packages that ship from China to the US annually, was suspended after its abrupt implementation sparked chaos at the US Postal Service.
“If this came back, we would hire more people, not necessarily in our US gateways, but maybe in Malaysia,” Pearson said on Wednesday (Mar 12) in Mexico City. He estimated DHL could hire about 200 workers to help to process shipments.
Yet Pearson noted that if Trump reinstates a version of the order but lowers the threshold to US$250, for instance, e-commerce companies that sell cheaper products would not be affected. “A lot of the Shein, Temu volumes are US$75, US$80, US$90, so it just goes straight through,” he said.
If the de minimis rule gets squashed, another possibility is that carriers such as DHL could see an increase in bulk imports and more fulfilment of goods in the US, rather than overseas, DHL chief executive officer Tobias Meyer said on Wednesday in Chicago.
But it would take time for the industry to adapt to the change. “If everybody has, let’s say, three months’ time or so to change their systems, Customs and Border Patrol gets also prepared for that, I do think you can have a relatively smooth transition,” Meyer said.
Pearson said Shein utilises all of DHL’s network. “They are in many senses a perfect and respected customer because they use all aspects of what our supply chain capability is,” he said.
Pearson said that in spite of the on-again, off-again tariff announcements from Trump, he expects demand for express shipping to grow this year. “We saw a recovery in quarter four and we continue to see a recovery in 2025,” he said. “Trade is very resilient, and do not underestimate the creativity of buyers and sellers who want to do business together.” BLOOMBERG
