Government House is asking Virgin Islanders and local businesses to share their stories of increased costs following the Trump administration’s elimination of the “de minimis” exemption for packages from outside the U.S. Customs Zone worth less than $800.
“This is not just for us …. Every territory is really paying this de minimis tax now,” Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. said Monday on the heels of multiple meetings with administration officials in Washington, D.C. “So we think we got it across, but we want to do a little extra. We want to show them in dollars and cents what it means to you, the people of the Virgin Islands.”
Bryan said residents and businesses can share their stories and pictures of postal fees to postalfees@go.vi.gov.
“We want to know how it’s affecting you, and we want to prove our case to the White House to get the president to get this turned over,” Bryan said. “So if you’re on a household budget and you have to squeeze to make it, if you’re in a business and it cuts into your profit margin, I’m sure that the president does not want to do harm to Americans, and he will understand us getting this done.”
In an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last year, the White House characterized the de miminis exemption as a “catastrophic loophole used to, among other things, evade tariffs and funnel deadly synthetic opioids as well as other unsafe or below-market products that harm American workers and businesses into the United States.”
The move was condemned by representatives, including Congressional Delegate Stacey Plaskett, who said in September that it placed yet another burden on territorial residents.
“I have said, for more than 10 years, that the Virgin Islands should determine if being outside of the Customs Zone has the same benefit that it did over 100 years ago to our territory and residents,” she stated. “If not, the governor of the Virgin Islands as the individual with the authority to enter into arrangements of this nature with the federal government should request such change which would then require the executive branch authorization.”
Government House spokesperson Richard Motta Jr. swiftly refuted the notion that the territory’s exclusion was a local decision.
“It never was,” he said in September. “It was established by Congress in the Tariff Act of 1930, which means only Congress has the authority to change that status — not Governor Bryan and not the President of the United States — and that has been the case since the United States Virgin Islands was acquired by the United States in 1917.”
