By DIDI TANG

WASHINGTON (AP) — Online shoppers in the U.S. will see a price break on their purchases valued at less than $800 and shipped from China after the Trump administration reached a truce with Beijing over sky-high tariffs.

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An executive order Monday from President Donald Trump said the tariffs on low-value parcels originating from China and coming through the U.S. Postal Service will be lowered to 54%, down from 120%.

It also says a per-package flat rate — as an alternative to the value-based tariff — will be kept at $100, rather than being raised to $200 on June 1 as previously decreed. Packages shipped by commercial carriers are subject to the general tariff, which also has been cut.

The new rules go into effect Wednesday.

They are part of a broader agreement by the Trump administration to drastically lower import taxes on all Chinese goods from 145% to 30% following weekend talks in Switzerland with Chinese officials. China issued a public notice on Tuesday lowering its own tariffs on U.S. goods to 10%, down from 125%.

However, the reductions are temporary, allowing the two sides to negotiate a longer-term deal in the next 90 days.

Izzy Rosenzweig, founder and CEO of the logistic company Portless, said U.S. brands are “very excited” about the broader tariff cut. The import tax is still high, but not as prohibitive as when it was 145%, which amounted to a trade embargo.

On the low-value shipments, online purchases had been coming into the U.S. duty-free for several years under the de minimis rule, which exempted them from the import tax.

Popular shopping sites such as Shein and Temu that offer ultra-low prices took advantage of the duty-free rule by shipping directly from China to U.S. buyers, bypassing more cumbersome customs paperwork.

President Donald Trump terminated the exemption on such parcels originating from China and Hong Kong on May 2, following criticism that it not only resulted in lost tariff revenue but also allowed illicit drugs and unsafe products to flow into the U.S. without adequate scrutiny.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said as many as 4 million low-value parcels were coming into the U.S. every day — many of which originated from China.

Shortly before the exemption ended on May 2, prices on many items sold by Shein rose. Temu apparently halted shipments from China and tapped its existing inventory in the U.S.

John Lash, group vice president of product strategy at the supply chain platform e2open, said he expected the volume of low-value packages would now rise but not back to previous levels. The $100 flat rate, he said, means that higher-value packages could get less of a hit, because the effective duty rate could be as low as 13%.

Neither Shein nor Temu immediately responded to requests for comment Tuesday about the lower tariffs.

The Minnesota Wild were eliminated from the Stanley Cup Play-offs on May 1, and a giant sinkhole opened up on West Seventh Street — a block away from the Xcel Energy Center — exactly one week later.

Coincidence?

Yes. Still, some businessowners are calling the timing a small blessing. No one wants a gaping hole running some 35 feet into the ground to open in front of their business. But if it had to happen, better that it take place in the post-season lull after professional hockey has let out and before the height of the summer concert season.

At the Downtowner Woodfire Grill, there’s been “no impact on our business,” said general manager Patrick Johnson, shortly after Tuesday’s lunch rush. “It’s been busy.”

That sentiment was shared by a driver for Domino’s pizza, a server at Tom Reid’s Hockey City Pub and other frontline staff at West Seventh Street businesses. Private contractors under the supervision of St. Paul Public Works will spend up to two months repairing the man-sized sink hole that opened on the evening of May 8, forcing ongoing partial road closures between Chestnut and Walnut streets.

Officials with the Xcel Energy Center said their day-to-day operations and events are not impacted by the sinkhole. They reminded fans attending Wednesday’s Minnesota Frost game that they need to plan ahead due to road closures connected with the sinkhole.

General traffic is being detoured between Kellogg Boulevard and Grand Avenue, though West Seventh in that stretch remains open for local business access, with one lane open in each direction. Sidewalks are unaffected.

“We don’t want through-traffic there,” said Lisa Hiebert, spokesperson for St. Paul Public Works, on Tuesday. “This is why we’re saying local business access only.”

Otherwise, there have been no direct water or sewer impacts reported by businesses, according to the city.

City crews are examining whether water may have loosened and weakened the earth in the affected area.

“It’s a good argument for why we need to reconstruct roads,” Hiebert said. “What we can say is a lot of time, sinkholes are caused by voids caused by water, but it’s still a little early to say what it was and what it wasn’t. Sources of water can come from many places.”

Filling the hole will be no simple patch job. Contractors will have to dig more than 30 feet through sandstone and limestone, assess damages and then rebuild the sanitary sewer tunnel.

The work, which began Monday, will involve installing new utility connections for surrounding businesses, building out a new shaft to the surface and then replacing the road surface, without damaging a 20-inch water main. To ensure worker safety, crews will install temporary supports for the depth of the project.

“Nobody ever wants things like this to happen, but this is a good example of how quickly the city and the agencies came together to limit impacts to businesses in the surrounding area,” Hiebert said. “The businesses, everybody was really great to work with.”

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UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty is stepping down for personal reasons and the nation’s largest health insurer suspended its full-year financial outlook due to higher-than-expected medical costs.

Andrew Witty

Chairman Stephen Hemsley will become CEO, effective immediately, the Eden Prairie-based company said.

Hemsley was UnitedHealth Group CEO from 2006 to 2017. He will remain chairman of the company’s board. Witty will serve as a senior adviser to Hemsley.

It has been a punishing period for UnitedHealth, starting in December when executive Brian Thompson was targeted outside of a New York City hotel and killed.

While unrelated to the financial operations of the $340 billion healthcare giant, its shares have tumbled severely since the attack.

“I’m deeply disappointed in and apologize for the performance setbacks we have encountered from both external and internal challenges,” Hemsley said during an early Tuesday conference call. “Many of the issues standing in the way of achieving our goals as well as our opportunities are largely within our control. I am optimistic about our future as these issues are within our capacity to resolve. We will approach them with humility, rigor and urgency.”

The 60 year-old Witty joined the company in 2018 after serving about nine years as CEO of the British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline. He was named UnitedHealth’s CEO in February 2021, replacing Dave Wichmann.

UnitedHealth became one of the nation’s largest companies under Witty’s leadership. Total revenue topped $400 billion last year, a 55% increase from the $257 billion UnitedHealth brought in the year before Witty became CEO.

Shares of UnitedHealth rocketed higher under Witty, too, up 60.5% since he took the company’s top job.

Yet there have been several setbacks for UnitedHealth over the past five months as it wrestles with the national attention on Luigi Mangione, who was indicted last month on a federal murder charge in the killing of Thompson.

The case has captured the American imagination, setting off a cascade of resentment and online vitriol toward U.S. health insurers while rattling corporate executives concerned about security.

UnitedHealth cut its 2025 forecast last month following its first quarterly earnings miss in more than a decade. On Tuesday the company withdrew that financial forecast entirely, saying that medical costs from new Medicare Advantage members were higher than expected.

Shares of UnitedHealth, which have plummeted 38% since the deadly Dec. 4 ambush of Thompson in midtown Manhattan, fell more than 16% Tuesday to levels last seen almost five years ago.

More than 50 million people have health insurance under UnitedHealth Group Inc. It also has a large pharmacy benefit manager that runs prescription drug coverage and a growing Optum segment that delivers care and provides technical support.

UnitedHealthcare is the nation’s largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans, with more than 8 million customers. Those are privately run versions of the federal government coverage program mostly for people ages 65 and older.

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New Jersey’s attorney general said Tuesday chemical manufacturer 3M agreed to pay up to $450 million to resolve lawsuits over natural resource contamination stemming from PFAS — commonly referred to as “forever chemicals.”

The settlement is subject to court approval and a public comment period, Attorney General Matt Platkin’s office said. Maplewood-based 3M is expected to pay $285 million this year, with additional amounts payable over the next 25 years. The total amount could reach $450 million, Platkin’s office said.

“Corporate polluters must be held accountable when they contaminate our state’s water supply,” Platkin said in a statement.

PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of chemicals that have been around for decades and have now spread into the nation’s air, water and soil.

3M said in 2022 it would end all PFAS manufacturing by the end of this year. In a statement, the company said it’s on track to do so.

“This agreement is another important step toward reducing risk and uncertainty on these legacy issues, allowing 3M to focus on its strategic priorities,” 3M said.

PFAS were manufactured by companies such as 3M, Chemours and others because they were incredibly useful. They helped eggs slide across non-stick frying pans, ensured that firefighting foam suffocates flames and helped clothes withstand rain and keep people dry.

The chemicals resist breaking down, though, meaning they linger in the environment.

Environmental activists say PFAS makers knew about the health harms of PFAS long before they were made public. The same attributes that make the chemicals so valuable – resistance to breakdown – make them hazardous to people.

PFAS accumulate in the body, which is why the Environmental Protection Agency set their limits for drinking water at 4 parts per trillion for two common types — PFOA and PFOS — that are phased out of manufacturing but still are present in the environment.

The New Jersey settlement stems from 2019 lawsuits at the nearly 1,500-acre Chambers Works site in Pennsville and Carneys Point and another location in Parlin. The settlement also resolves all other statewide claims in litigation over PFAS in firefighting material used in the state.

The lawsuits alleged the companies involved, including 3M, knew about risks from forever chemicals produced at the facilities but continued to sell them.

The attorney general said that by agreeing to settle 3M would not go to trial next week in the Chambers Works case.

New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection will use a portion of the settlement funds to “protect public health, safety and the environment from impacts caused by PFAS,” according to a joint statement from the attorney general and DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette.

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