For years, small packages have been pouring into Europe from China. Millions of tiny boxes leave the factories of Guangzhou and Shenzhen every day, arriving at the doorsteps of consumers in Paris, Berlin, and Madrid, carrying cheap clothes and accessories bought with the click of a button. Behind this flood of goods are three Chinese platforms that have transformed the face of global retail in just a few years: Shein, Temu, and AliExpress. These platforms built their business model on a simple idea: direct shipping from factory to consumer, with no intermediary, importer, or local inventory, taking advantage of customs exemptions established in an era when no one imagined a consumer would shop from a store 10,000 kilometers away.

The numbers reveal the scale of the phenomenon. According to the European Commission, in 2024, around 4.6 billion parcels valued under €150 entered Europe, equivalent to 12 million parcels per day—double the number recorded in 2023. Then in 2025, the figure jumped to about 5.9 billion parcels. More important than the volume is the source: about 91% of these parcels come from China alone. These figures mean that what began as a limited customs exemption has turned into a massive trade channel operating outside the tariff system that traditional importers face.

Faced with this barrage of small parcels, the European Union decided at the beginning of this month to abolish the customs exemption on parcels valued under €150 and replace it with a fixed duty of €3 per item. The duty is calculated for each product category, so a single basket may incur multiple duties in one purchase. This decision is temporary until mid-2028 when the new European customs system is complete. Parcels exceeding €150 were not affected; they were and still are subject to full customs duties plus VAT, like any traditional import. The European move is not the first of its kind. The United States preceded it in 2025 when it abolished its similar exemption covering parcels under $800. Chinese small-parcel exports to America then dropped by about 30%. But the goods did not disappear—they changed direction, and air cargo capacity shifted from the Pacific route to the China-Europe route. So the European decision came to close the second door against the flood, or at least that was what its makers intended.

That is because the Chinese platforms prepared for this decision as if they had expected it. Shein opened a huge logistics center in Poland, followed by a warehouse in central England. Temu built ten European warehouses aiming to fulfill 80% of its orders from within the European continent. Curiously, Chinese analyst circles read the European decision from an entirely opposite angle to the European narrative. They do not describe it as protectionist so much as they see it as the end of a growth model based solely on low costs and a forced push for their companies toward a more mature model centered on localization and brand building. They estimate the real additional cost at between €5 and €8 per parcel after adding clearance and logistics expenses. It is as if both sides tell the same story in two languages: one calls it restoring sovereignty, the other calls it maturing the business model.

Accordingly, Europe gained two outcomes from this decision. First, it regained its regulatory and tax sovereignty: Chinese companies are now subject to European taxes, product safety standards, and environmental norms that direct parcels had previously circumvented. Customs gained the ability to inspect consolidated shipments instead of chasing 12 million parcels daily. The economy gained thousands of logistics jobs. The second outcome is the loss of the original protective goal: the decision, designed to protect European merchants and manufacturers, ended up rooting the competitor deeper inside the market instead of expelling it. Today, Chinese platforms compete with European retailers from within, with higher delivery speeds. Moreover, the fixed duty itself harms the small European seller who imports in limited quantities more than it harms a giant who ships by containers to its warehouses.

The case of the European decision is a microcosm of the protectionism dilemma in today's world. Goods are always faster than legislation; they change course when doors close and change their skin when scrutiny tightens. The consumer, accustomed to cheap purchases, will ultimately pay the bill, either as a duty shown at checkout or a higher price for goods from a local warehouse. Amid all this, the constant truth remains: the era of the parcel crossing continents unchecked is over, and cross-border e-commerce enters a new phase defined by proximity, not distance, and localization, not transit.

* Quoted from Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper

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