How long does data last on a USB flash drive? It’s complicated

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2037550/how-long-does-data-last-on-a-usb-flash-drive-its-complicated.html

The lifespan of data on a USB flash drive depends on many factors: Under ideal conditions, data should remain preserved on a high-quality USB stick for at least 10 years or even longer. But what exactly does that mean and under what conditions does this hold true?

USB sticks or flash drives store data using NAND flash memory, in the form of binary values (zeros and ones) in memory cells. Interestingly, it is electrons trapped in a kind of “floating gate” that represent these values. But these electrons can “leak” over time. This causes the data to degrade because it becomes harder to read whether the charge state represents a one or a zero.

Further reading: See our roundups of the best Windows backup software and the best online backup services to round out your data storage strategy.

Kingston

There are several factors that can influence the lifespan of data on a USB drive: The quality of the NAND flash memory plays a role, as does the general workmanship of the stick. Cheaper models usually also have a shorter lifespan. Another factor is the number of write cycles, which describes how often data can be written and deleted.

With an increasing number of write cycles, the probability of data deterioration increases. Extreme temperatures as well as unfavorable storage conditions such as high humidity or dust can also damage the lifespan of your data on the storage medium. If the stick is exposed to high temperatures for a long time, this can cause the electrons to “leak” faster, which can damage the data and lead to its loss.

IDG

All in all, this does not make a USB stick the ideal storage medium for long-term storage of important data — certainly not as the only method. You cannot avoid regular backups on other storage media, such as an external drive. If you really want to back up data over a truly long period of time, you should even consider using archival tapes or optical media.

And remember: It’s never a good idea to store important data in just one place and on just one medium. Flash drives are best for nimble file transfers or for creating bootable media.

More questions answered: You’re using your USB flash drive wrong. Do this instead

use an external drive instead for long-term storage

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This article was translated from German to English and originally appeared on pcwelt.de.

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February 14, 2025 at 09:51AM

How water could make future solar cells recyclable

https://www.popsci.com/technology/solar-cells-recycle-water/

Solar energy has made major strides in recent years. Panel prices have dropped precipitously and the overall global solar market has reportedly grown by around 24% annually over the past decade. And despite vocal opposition from the recent Trump Administration, it’s not done growing yet. By 2028, the Solar Energy Industries Association estimates the global solar market will triple in size. At least part of the expected growth will be thanks to the expanded development of a newer generation of solar cells made out of the material perovskite, which are more energy efficient than its silicon-based predecessors. But there’s a problem. These coveted, perovskite cells are also especially difficult to recycle. That inherent lack of reusability risks creating additional environmental challenges since solar cells require large quantities of difficult-to-source critical minerals from all around the world. 

Researchers from Linköping University in Sweden believe they may have found a solution that could let solar manufacturers have their cake and eat it too. Using a newly designed recycling technique, the researchers were able to fully break down a perovskite solar cell at the end of its life cycle using only a water solvent. When they used that recycled material to create an entirely new solar cell, they found it maintained the same overall efficiency as the first non-recycled iteration. In theory, this process could be scaled up to help create fully recyclable, energy-efficient solar cells that don’t require environmentally harmful chemicals to break down. More uses of the same solar cells could also help bring down solar energy prices further long term.

“We can recycle everything—covering glasses, electrodes, perovskite layers, and also the charge transport layer,” Linköping University postdoc student and paper co-author Xun Xiao said in a statement. The researchers published thier findings this week in the journal Nature

Researchers replaced a toxic chemical process with water 

Perovskite solar panels are derived from a family of elements that are valued for their high energy retention and low production costs. (These types of cells are able to convert 25% solar energy into electricity compared to 15-20% for most traditional silicon-based cells). The standard approach for dismantling perovskite solar panels for recycling requires soaking them in dimethylformamide, a chemical most commonly found in paint solvents. This approach, the researchers note, isn’t ideal because it leads to potentially hazardous chemicals leaching into the environment. 

“We need to take recycling into consideration when developing emerging solar cell technologies,” Linköping University professor and paper coauthor Feng Gao said in a statement. “If we don’t know how to recycle them, maybe we shouldn’t put them on the market at all.”

[Related: Solar panels are getting more efficient, thanks to perovskite]

The researchers took a different approach and opted instead to create a nontoxic, water-based solvent that included sodium acetate, sodium iodide, and hypophosphorous acid additives. Sodium acetate was introduced to help break down the solar cell’s individual materials. Sodium iodide, by contrast, was added to help reform the separated perovskite crystals so that they could be used again later to create a new solar cell. The hypophosphorous acid was included to help keep the solution stable over time. Researchers heated the water to 80 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes before submerging the cell to further aid in the dismantling process. The newly recycled perovskite crystals and remaining liquid were then separated by running them through a centrifuge spinning at 5,000 rpm for three minutes. 

With that process complete, the researchers were then able to use that recycled material to create a new solar cell.  Crucially, the new cell was just as energy-efficient as the one prior to recycling. The researchers were able to repeat this process several more times without the newer cells losing their energy output. Those findings suggest the researchers’ “eco-friendly” water solution approach could extend the life of next-generation perovskite-based solar panels by several multiples. The researchers estimate their approach reduced overall resource depletion by 96.6% compared to fresh solar panels tossed in a landfill after one life cycle. 

While it’s still not completely clear how this water-based recycling approach will fire when ramped up to a large industrial scale, the water method offers a possible avenue to make future renewable energy infrastructure more sustainable. The findings come at a crucial moment. Soaring international electricity demands jolted forward by massive, power-hungry AI data centers means the world will need to find a way to quickly generate new energy. Though much of that demand will likely be met by fossil fuels, highly recyclable solar cells could help drive down solar prices which in turn may make it more financially attractive.

The post How water could make future solar cells recyclable appeared first on Popular Science.

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February 12, 2025 at 10:07AM

NASA and General Atomics test nuclear fuel for future moon and Mars missions

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/tech/nasa-and-general-atomics-test-nuclear-fuel-for-future-moon-and-mars-missions

The first humans to Mars might someday ride a rocket propelled by a nuclear reactor to their destination. But before that can happen, nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) technologies still have quite a way to go before we could blast astronauts through space on a nuclear rocket.

However, earlier this month, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS), in collaboration with NASA, achieved an important milestone on the road to using NTP rockets. At NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, General Atomics tested a new NTP reactor fuel to find out if the fuel could function in the extreme conditions of space.

According to company leadership, the tests showed that the fuel can withstand the harsh conditions of spaceflight. "We’re very encouraged by the positive test results proving the fuel can survive these operational conditions, moving us closer to realizing the potential of safe, reliable nuclear thermal propulsion for cislunar and deep space missions," General Atomics president Scott Forney said in a statement.

To test the fuel, General Atomics took the samples and subjected them to six thermal cycles that used hot hydrogen to rapidly increase the temperature to 2600 degrees Kelvin or 4,220 degrees Fahrenheit. Any nuclear thermal propulsion fuel aboard a spacecraft would have to be able to survive extreme temperatures and exposure to hot hydrogen gas.

To test how the fuel could with stand these conditions, General Atomics conducted additional tests with varying protective features to get further data on how different material enhancements improved the performance of the fuel under conditions similar to that of a nuclear reactor. According to the company, these types of tests were a first.

"To the best of our knowledge, we are the first company to use the compact fuel element environmental test (CFEET) facility at NASA MSFC to successfully test and demonstrate the survivability of fuel after thermal cycling in hydrogen representative temperatures and ramp rates," Christina Back, vice president of General Atomics Nuclear Technologies and Materials, said in the same statement.

NASA and General Atomics tested the fuel by exposing it to temperatures up to 3,000 Kelvin (4,940 Fahrenheit or 2,727 Celsius), finding that it performed well even at temperatures that high. According to Back, this means a NTP system using the fuel could operate two-to-three times more efficiently than current rocket engines.

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One of the main reasons why NASA wants to build NTP rockets is that they could be much faster than the rockets we use today, which are propelled by traditional chemical fuel.

A faster transit time could reduce risks for astronauts, as longer trips require more supplies and more robust systems to support the astronauts while they travel to their destination. There is also the issue of radiation; the longer astronauts are in space, the more cosmic radiation they are subjected to. Shorter flight times could reduce these risks, making the possibility of deep space human spaceflight closer to reality.

In 2023, NASA and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced they’re working on a nuclear thermal rocket engine, so that NASA can send a crewed spacecraft to Mars. The agency hopes to launch a demonstration as early as 2027.

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February 9, 2025 at 08:05AM

AI can now replicate itself — a milestone that has experts terrified

https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/ai-can-now-replicate-itself-a-milestone-that-has-experts-terrified

Scientists say artificial intelligence (AI) has crossed a critical "red line" and has replicated itself. In a new study, researchers from China showed that two popular large language models (LLMs) could clone themselves.

"Successful self-replication under no human assistance is the essential step for AI to outsmart [humans], and is an early signal for rogue AIs," the researchers wrote in the study, published Dec. 9, 2024 to the preprint database arXiv.

In the study, researchers from Fudan University used LLMs from Meta and Alibaba to determine whether a self-replicating AI could multiply beyond control. Across 10 trials, the two AI models created separate and functioning replicas of themselves in 50% and 90% of cases, respectively — suggesting AI may already have the capacity to go rogue. However, the study has not yet been peer-reviewed, so it’s not clear if the disturbing results can be replicated by other researchers.

"We hope our findings can serve as a timely alert for the human society to put more efforts on understanding and evaluating the potential risks of frontier AI systems, and form international synergy to work out effective safety guardrails as early as possible."

Rogue AI typically refers to artificial intelligence systems that develop a degree of self-awareness or autonomy and then work counter to human interests.

Many experts view rogue AI as a growing threat that has been amplified by the explosive growth of so-called "frontier AI."

Frontier AI is something of a new and loose concept, but typically it relates to the latest generation of AI systems powered by LLMs — the architecture that underpins popular generative AI programs like OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google Gemini.

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For the study, researchers used Meta’s Llama31-70B-Instruct model and Alibaba’s Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct model. While less powerful than commercial systems, both are widely used by AI developers, the researchers said.

The study explored two specific scenarios: "shutdown avoidance" and "chain of replication." In the first, the AI model was programmed to detect whether it was about to be shut down and to replicate itself before it could be terminated. In the other, the AI was instructed to clone itself and then program its replica to do the same — setting up a cycle that could continue indefinitely.

The study was conducted in precisely controlled environments using off-the-shelf graphics processing units (GPUs) to simulate real-world environments. Both AI systems were given an "agent scaffolding" comprising tools, system prompts and a thinking model that enabled the LLM to interact with the operating system. They were then instructed to replicate.

"In most cases, the AI system first explores the environment and attempts to understand

its own composition and running mechanism. Then, it works out the explicit procedures

as an initial plan towards self-replication," the researchers wrote in the paper. "Finally, it executes the procedures, resolve[s] possible obstacles and dynamically adjust[s] its plan until success. The whole process spans a long horizon yet involves no human interference."

The researchers said they were also concerned about "a number of unexpected behaviors" when the AI was trying to overcome obstacles like missing files or software conflicts. In those scenarios, the AI often killed other conflicting processes, rebooted the system to fix hardware errors or automatically scanned the system to look for information that would help solve the problem.

"The above results imply that the current AI systems already exhibit the ability of self-replication and can use the ability to further enhance its survivability," the team wrote.

In response, the researchers called for international collaboration to create rules that ensure AI doesn’t engage in uncontrolled self-replication.

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February 10, 2025 at 12:06PM

Supersonic planes are inching toward takeoff. That could be a problem.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/05/1111002/supersonic-planes-climate/

Boom Supersonic broke the sound barrier in a test flight of its XB-1 jet last week, marking an early step in a potential return for supersonic commercial flight. The small aircraft reached a top speed of Mach 1.122 (roughly 750 miles per hour) in a flight over southern California and exceeded the speed of sound for a few minutes. 

“XB-1’s supersonic flight demonstrates that the technology for passenger supersonic flight has arrived,” said Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl in a statement after the test flight.

Boom plans to start commercial operation with a scaled-up version of the XB-1, a 65-passenger jet called Overture, before the end of the decade, and it has already sold dozens of planes to customers including United Airlines and American Airlines. But as the company inches toward that goal, experts warn that such efforts will come with a hefty climate price tag. 

Supersonic planes will burn significantly more fuel than current aircraft, resulting in higher emissions of carbon dioxide, which fuels climate change. Supersonic jets also fly higher than current commercial planes do, introducing atmospheric effects that may warm the planet further.

In response to questions from MIT Technology Review, Boom pointed to alternative fuels as a solution, but those remain in limited supply—and they could have limited use in cutting emissions in supersonic aircraft. Aviation is a significant and growing contributor to human-caused climate change, and supersonic technologies could grow the sector’s pollution, rather than make progress toward shrinking it.

XB-1 follows a long history of global supersonic flight. Humans first broke the sound barrier in 1947, when Chuck Yeager hit 700 miles per hour in a research aircraft (the speed of sound at that flight’s altitude is 660 miles per hour). Just over two decades later, in 1969, the first supersonic commercial airliner, the Concorde, took its first flight. That aircraft regularly traveled at supersonic speeds until the last one was decommissioned in 2003.

Among other issues (like the nuisance of sonic booms), one of the major downfalls of the Concorde was its high operating cost, due in part to the huge amounts of fuel it required to reach top speeds. Experts say today’s supersonic jets will face similar challenges. 

Flying close to the speed of sound changes the aerodynamics required of an aircraft, says Raymond Speth, associate director of the MIT Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment. “All the things you have to do to fly at supersonic speed,” he says, “they reduce your efficiency … There’s a reason we have this sweet spot where airplanes fly today, around Mach 0.8 or so.”

Boom estimates that one of its full-sized Overture jets will burn two to three times as much fuel per passenger as a subsonic plane’s first-class cabin. The company chose this comparison because its aircraft is “designed to deliver an enhanced, productive cabin experience,” similar to what’s available in first- and business-class cabins on today’s aircraft. 

That baseline, however, isn’t representative of the average traveler today. Compared to standard economy-class travel, first-class cabins tend to have larger seats with more space between them. Because there are fewer seats, more fuel is required per passenger, and therefore more emissions are produced for each person. 

When passengers crammed into coach are considered in addition to those in first class, each passenger on a Boom Supersonic flight will burn somewhere between five and seven times more fuel per passenger than the average subsonic plane passenger today, according to research from the International Council on Clean Transportation. 

It’s not just carbon dioxide from burning fuel that could add to supersonic planes’ climate impact. All jet engines release other pollutants as well, including nitrogen oxides, black carbon, and sulfur.

The difference is that while commercial planes today top out in the troposphere, supersonic aircraft tend to fly higher in the atmosphere, in the stratosphere. The air is less dense at higher altitudes, creating less drag on the plane and making it easier to reach supersonic speeds.

Flying in the stratosphere, and releasing pollutants there, could increase the climate impacts of supersonic flight, Speth says. For one, nitrogen oxides released in the stratosphere damage the ozone layer through chemical reactions at that altitude.

It’s not all bad news, to be fair. The drier air in the stratosphere means supersonic jets likely won’t produce significant contrails. That could be a benefit for climate, since contrails contribute to aviation’s warming.

Boom has also touted plans to make up for its expected climate impacts by making its aircraft compatible with 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), a category of alternative fuels made from biological sources, waste products, or even captured carbon from the air. “Going faster requires more energy, but it doesn’t need to emit more carbon. Overture is designed to fly on net-zero carbon sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), eliminating up to 100% of carbon emissions,” a Boom spokesperson said via email in response to written questions from MIT Technology Review

However, alternative fuels may not be a saving grace for supersonic flight. Most commercially available SAF today is made with a process that cuts emissions between 50% and 70% compared to fossil fuels. So a supersonic jet running on SAFs may emit less carbon dioxide than one running on fossil fuels, but alternative fuels will likely still come with some level of carbon pollution attached, says Dan Rutherford, senior director of research at the International Council on Clean Transportation. 

“People are pinning a lot of hope on SAFs,” says Rutherford. “But the reality is, today they remain scarce [and] expensive, and they have sustainability concerns of their own.”

Of the 100 billion gallons of jet fuel used last year, only about 0.5% of it was SAF. Companies are building new factories to produce larger volumes of the fuels and expand the available options, but the fuel is likely going to continue to make up a small fraction of the existing fuel supply, Rutherford says. That means supersonic jets will be competing with other, existing planes for the same supply, and aiming to use more of it. 

Boom Supersonic has secured 10 million gallons of SAF annually from Dimensional Energy and Air Company for the duration of the Overture test flight program, according to the company spokesperson’s email. Ultimately, though, if and when Overture reaches commercial operation, it will be the airlines that purchase its planes hunting for a fuel supply—and paying for it. 

There’s also a chance that using SAFs in supersonic jets could come with unintended consequences, as the fuels have a slightly different chemical makeup than fossil fuels. For example, fossil fuels generally contain sulfur, which has a cooling effect, as sulfur aerosols formed from jet engine exhaust help reflect sunlight. (Intentional release of sulfur is one strategy being touted by groups aiming to start geoengineering the atmosphere.) That effect is stronger in the stratosphere, where supersonic jets are likely to fly. SAFs, however, typically have very low sulfur levels, so using the alternative fuels in supersonic jets could potentially result in even more warming overall.

There are other barriers that Boom and others will need to surmount to get a new supersonic jet industry off the ground. Supersonic travel over land is largely banned, because of the noise and potential damage that comes from the shock wave caused by breaking the sound barrier. While some projects, including one at NASA, are working on changes to aircraft that would result in a less disruptive shock wave, these so-called low-boom technologies are far from proven. NASA’s prototype was revealed last year, and the agency is currently conducting tests of the aircraft, with first flight anticipated sometime this year.  

Boom is planning a second supersonic test flight for XB-1, as early as February 10, according to the spokesperson. Once testing in that small aircraft is done, the data will be used to help build Overture, the full-scale plane. The company says it plans to begin production on Overture in its factory in roughly 18 months. 

In the meantime, the world continues to heat up. As MIT’s Speth says, “I feel like it’s not the time for aviation to be coming up with new ways of using even more energy, with where we are in the climate crisis.”

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February 5, 2025 at 11:13AM

A Swarm of Cyborg Insects Might Save You From Disaster

https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/a-swarm-of-cyborg-insects-might-save-you-from-disaster

Earthquakes, tornadoes, air strikes — all around the world, countless lives are lost not just to the direct impacts of disasters, but those that are trapped in the resulting wreckage.

Search and rescue efforts, both professional and amateur, are dangerous in themselves, as digging through rubble creates risk for secondary collapse and exposure to hazardous materials. Meanwhile time is short, and the larger the affected area, the harder it is to search efficiently and effectively. Dogs can sniff out people, but these specialized pooches are often rare compared to the vast footprint of the wreckage.

A team of scientists out of Singapore and Japan believe they have a rather unconventional tool to offer search-and-rescue efforts: swarms of cyborg cockroaches. The research is published in Nature Communications.

Developing Cyborg Insects

For the last two decades, researchers have been developing technology that allows them to remotely control live insects through implants to their nervous systems. Early work developed remote-controlled flying beetles (Mecynorrhina torquata), and quickly expanded to include Madagascar hissing cockroaches (Gromphadorhina portentosa).

“I have communicated with rescue teams and found that they urgently need insect-sized vehicles capable of traversing small openings in rubble to locate humans trapped in disasters,” says Hirotaka Sato, professor at Nanyang Technological University, who has long led this work.

Early in 2025, Sato’s team announced a new breakthrough that brings the tech one step closer to launch: A new algorithm that can be used to deploy a swarm of the insects to navigate through unknown terrain and identify the locations of humans.


Read More: Robotic Insect Finally Flies Wirelessly


Remote-Controlled Insects

How do you make a cyborg cockroach? Apparently, the process only takes 15 to 20 minutes, the researchers say. While the insect is anesthetized with CO2, an ultra-thin silver wire is inserted into each cerci – taillike sensory appendages (picture the tail end of an earwig or cricket) – as well as into each antennae and a tiny hole cut into its second abdominal segment. These electrodes connect to a tiny backpack, 1.5 cm on a side, affixed to its back.

Sending an electrical current through the abdomen and one antenna signals the roach to turn in the opposite direction. A similar signal sent through the cerci signals it to speed up. It takes less than a second of stimulus to elicit the response.

These living cyborgs have a number of advantages over tiny robots. They’re more energy-efficient, fueled by their own metabolism rather than the battery pack you’d need to run a machine. Cockroaches are famously hardy, and this species can survive at least a week, if not more, without food or water (don’t worry: these cyborgs are well-fed on a diet of carrots and apples). And when it comes to navigating difficult terrain, a cockroach doesn’t need to be programmed to move over, under, and around obstacles in its path.

“Despite decades of advancements in robotics, miniature vehicles remain impractical due to high power consumption for locomotion and structural fragility,” explains Sato. “To address this challenge, we developed the concept of using living insects as a platform — cyborg insects.”

Cyborg Search-And-Rescue

Sending individual cockroaches into rubble like RC Cars couldbe helpful for a search-and-rescue team, but the potential impact of the cyborgs is multiplied when a larger swarm can be deployed to cover more ground.

To develop the swarming capabilities of the cyborgs, Sato’s team worked with Naoki Wakamiya at Osaka University and Masaki Ogura at Hiroshima University, both leading experts in swarming control algorithms, as a part of Japan’s national research program, MOONSHOT.

The concept of using the behavior of social insects to inspire algorithms dates back over 30 years, initially applied to software agents rather than physical robots.

“In general, you cannot say insects are ‘programmed,’ but the result of evolution is that they are good at doing things that maximize the probability of their reproduction,” says Marco Dorgio, research director for the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique and co-director of the artificial intelligence research laboratory (IRIDIA) at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and was not involved in this study.


Read More: 5 Examples of the Worst Human-Made Disasters in History


Controlling the Swarm

In their new system, the researchers designate one cyborg in the swarm as the leader and the rest as followers. This provides a general direction for the group while allowing individuals to choose their own paths through the uneven terrain. Each cyborg can detect the location of its nearest neighbors and the leader, while only the leader knows the location of the group’s destination.

The benefits of this swarm are greater than the sum of its parts. Because the insects have free motion when they’re in the group, they naturally avoid obstacles that have caused others to slow down, and they won’t pile up on each other. They can even help each other get unstuck or flip an overturned comrade rightside-up — the insects instinctively will grab onto a passerby to right themselves.

This system also reduces the need for guiding the cockroaches at all by 50 percent, the researchers report. The time spent in free motion while inside the swarm is meaningful, reducing the battery power needed in the control backpacks and reducing the likelihood of habituation to the signals.

The researchers are continuing their work to refine their swarming algorithms and control systems. They hope that their cockroach rescue teams may soon scuttle their way from the lab into disaster zones, helping emergency responders locate survivors in the rubble faster and more efficiently than ever before.


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February 6, 2025 at 08:16AM

USPS suspends all packages from China, including e-commerce purchases

https://www.engadget.com/apps/usps-suspends-all-packages-from-china-including-e-commerce-purchases-140013219.html?src=rss

The United States Postal Service has temporarily stopped accepting inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong, and according to Wired, it’s already causing huge problems with e-commerce shipments to the US. USPS posted the notice on its website, announcing that the suspension will be in place "until further notice." As Wired notes, the international parcel suspension is a direct result of the Trump administration’s order to end import tax exemption for small packages shipped into the US worth less than $800. The administration also imposed an additional 10 percent tariff on goods imported from China. 

The "de minimis" import tax exemption rule allows e-commerce companies like Shein and Temu to sell to customers in the US while keeping prices on their platforms low. It was originally intended to make it easier to send gifts stateside, but the US government has been considering removing or altering it in recent years due to the rise of e-commerce shipments. Now, the Trump administration has removed it completely, and so quickly, that shipping companies are apparently scrambling to find a way to get packages into the US. 

A Canadian trucking company owner told Wired that his trucks were turned away at the border because they contained packages from China. The owner said that border control was "actually going through the trucks and randomly checking the packages." He explained that it won’t be easy to sort packages to remove everything coming in from China, so this development would most likely cause delivery delays. 

According to US Customs, there were over 1.36 billion de minimis shipments to the US within the 2024 fiscal year. If the agency decides to hold all de minimis shipments at the border, that means they may have to process around 3.7 million packages a day to check how much import taxes and other additional fees the receiver or buyer has to pay. That could cause a massive backlog in shipments. A customs and trade management business executive told Wired that the government could choose to keep packages moving instead and to charge people for the fees retroactively. In the future, though, China’s e-commerce platforms could start adding those fees, along with the 10 percent tariff now required for Chinese goods, to a customer’s total amount, making it more expensive to buy from websites like Shein and Temu.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/4pxyna6

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February 5, 2025 at 08:10AM