We’ve all read the headlines about tariffs and trade rules, but those stories can feel abstract until you see how they land on a business close to home. To bring it into focus locally, we spoke with Ledbury, a Richmond-based shirtmaker, about how these changes are reshaping the way they operate. Their experience offers a clear window into what these policies mean, not just for one company, but for American customers everywhere.
For decades, Americans ordering small packages from abroad benefited from a little-known exemption called the de minimis rule. It allowed goods under $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free, saving consumers money and giving businesses a way to ship directly to customers without extra taxes or delays.
That all changed this summer. In April, Trump’s “Liberation Day” trade announcement unveiled sweeping new tariffs, with an eventual plan to phase out de minimis by 2027. But in early August, the administration abruptly moved up the timeline, declaring the rule would end on August 29. Businesses and carriers that thought they had years to adjust were suddenly left with just weeks to rewrite supply chains and customs systems, a task normally measured in years.
What Is De Minimis?
The de minimis exemption was first created in the 1930s. It allowed low-value shipments to enter the U.S. without paying duties or tariffs, on the logic that collecting fees on very small packages wasn’t worth the government’s time. Over the years, the threshold rose from just a few dollars, to $200 in the 1990s, and finally to $800 in 2016.
That exemption reshaped global e-commerce. It let companies of all sizes ship directly to U.S. customers without the added costs of customs clearance. Fast-fashion giants like Shein and Temu used it to flood the market with ultra-cheap clothing, while small sellers on Amazon and Etsy relied on it to keep prices competitive. Niche makers like Ledbury also built part of their business model around it as it enabled them to make a completely custom shirt and deliver it to customers in just two weeks.
When the rule abruptly ended on August 29, every small parcel coming into the U.S. suddenly became taxable. That change rippled instantly through businesses, carriers, and consumers raising costs, slowing service, and closing off a system that had quietly underpinned decades of cross-border shopping.
A $100 Shirt Tells the Story
Take a cotton shirt that a customer buys for $100 that is shipped to them directly from Vietnam.
- Before (with De Minimis): $100; no duties, no tariffs
- Now (Duties + Tariffs): $140; $100 base + $20 duty + $20 tariff
And that’s before you even add shipping costs and customs fees.
“If you want to continue to ship directly to customers for every $100 purchase would be paying $40 of taxes on top of shipping,” said Paul Trible, co-founder of Ledbury. “That just doesn’t work.”
To cope, Ledbury has shifted to bulk importing: clearing shipments through U.S. customs, relabeling them, and redistributing domestically. It keeps things moving but adds time and expense.
“We’ve had to figure out a way, within four weeks, of how to bring it into the country, clear it through customs, relabel it, and get it shipped out to the end customer,” Trible explained. “It’s going to cost more money for people, and it’s not going to be as quick.”
Even with those changes, Ledbury is absorbing some of the hit. “We’ve worked on a solution that lets us keep some prices steady, but we’re doing that at a loss,” Trible admitted. “Prices will go up. And service won’t be as quick.”
Tariffs Without Warning
The new tariffs added another layer of uncertainty. Companies like Ledbury plan production six to seven months in advance, meaning they were blindsided by the sudden changes.
“Most of us who produce and import things abroad were hoping for a more surgical tariff philosophy,” Trible said. “Instead, we were pretty surprised by the announcement with just a list of pretty much every trading partner in the world.”
Ledbury had sweaters in production at a small factory in Italy when the tariffs were announced. “We produced the sweaters over spring and started shipping them in August. But while we were producing them, we didn’t know if the tariff was going to be 15%, 30%, or 40%, on top of the 16% duty that we already pay,” Trible recalled. “We just left price tags off them, not knowing what we were going to have to price things at when we actually delivered.”
That kind of uncertainty, he said, is challenging for a small company and even harder to imagine at Walmart’s scale. “Imagine us doing that for sweaters. Now imagine Walmart doing that for pickles or dog food. Producers with huge orders, short lead times, and long lead times, it just really makes things complicated.”
The sudden policy shift rattled the shipping industry as well. “Even the major carriers, UPS, DHL, FedEx, are still trying to figure it out,” Trible said. “Some international carriers even stopped sending small packages to the U.S. temporarily because nobody knew how to do it.”
Postal services in more than 25 countries suspended shipments to the U.S. at the end of August, while U.S. Customs scrambled to keep parcels moving with temporary flat-fee duties of $80 to $200 per package. Private carriers quickly became the more reliable option, racing to rework their systems.
“Everyone’s reacting at once, producers, carriers, logistics companies,” Trible said. “It’s created this huge bottleneck, and it’s still shaking out.”
Long-Term Impact
Consumers won’t feel the full brunt immediately. Large companies had already shipped much of their 2025 inventory before the rules changed.
“Nike has already brought over its product for the rest of the year,” Trible explained. “That was probably marked and labeled and priced before all these tariffs were finalized. That stuff will get repriced in January of next year, when the new shipments come in.”
Prices will creep up through late 2025, but the real spike will hit in 2026 when full product cycles face both tariffs and the loss of de minimis.
And despite political promises, Trible doesn’t believe tariffs will bring apparel manufacturing back to the U.S. “It’s not just about whether Americans are willing to pay higher prices. We can’t find the labor to do it here. Sewing is skilled, intensive work and you have to train someone for six months to a year be a really solid seamstress.”
When Ledbury experimented with bespoke shirtmaking in Richmond years ago, they employed a master tailor but struggled to recruit and train supporting staff. The skills take months to build, and there simply isn’t a workforce ready to take on that kind of work.
Trible added that the few sewing factories left in the U.S. are almost entirely staffed by immigrants and restrictive immigration policy makes it even harder to sustain or expand that workforce.
“I don’t know how, in things like clothing and apparel, you can possibly bring that back without having the people to do it, the skill set to do it, and the willingness to do it,” he said. “For apparel, it’s not coming back to the United States at mass scale. And I haven’t talked to a single apparel CEO who’s even considered that.”
Instead of a revival of American shirt factories, Trible predicts companies will adapt in other ways: by raising prices, cutting quality, or slowing delivery times. And for shoppers, the fallout is already clear.
“The $12 shirt from China that used to come in duty-free? That’s not going to be $12 anymore,” Trible said. “Cheap goods are going to be more expensive. Everything that comes through the system is going to cost more.”
It’s not just price, it’s speed. Ledbury’s hallmark has been efficiency: a custom shirt made in five days, delivered in two weeks. That edge is fading. “Service won’t be as quick, and customers are going to notice that,” Trible said.
His advice is to think long-term: “Buy nice things that last. That’s what we try to do at Ledbury, make a shirt you can have for 10 years. If it goes up $10, nobody wants that, but the value is still there.”
For Trible, this isn’t just a Ledbury story, it’s a preview of what’s ahead for the entire retail economy. The ripple effects of tariffs and the end of de minimis are moving from small Richmond businesses to big-box retailers and global supply chains.
A Local Story With National Implications
Ledbury’s scramble to adapt shows how sudden policy changes ripple far beyond Washington boardrooms. For a Richmond menswear company, it has meant rewriting supply chains in weeks, absorbing losses, and warning customers that prices and wait times are going up.
What’s happening to Ledbury is a preview of what’s coming for everyone. From small businesses to global brands, companies are adjusting to tariffs, lost exemptions, and more complicated logistics.
“It’s frustrating to see officials go on television and say this isn’t going to impact American businesses,” Trible said. “It obviously already has. We’re the ones who import it. We’re the ones who make it. And now we’re all having to refigure it out.”
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