26. Trade · Minor · Contested — excluded from counts
Remove never-needed supply chain restrictions
Printed page 800 26. Trade · from “The Case for Free Trade”
“Remove never-needed supply chain restrictions, which give families fewer places to which they can turn. The recent shortage of baby formula, for example, was caused largely by heavily protectionist regulations.”
What has happened
- Not started
Import restrictions were added, not removed. Customs and Border Protection indefinitely suspended the $800 de minimis exemption for merchandise arriving through the postal network and through every other mode by two final rules of 2026-06-24, and the Section 232 program was extended over the window to pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients (proclamation of 2026-04-02), semiconductors, copper, timber and lumber, commercial aircraft, polysilicon and unmanned aircraft systems. On the Quote's own example — infant formula — nothing changed: FDA's only in-window action is a request for information on the nutrient requirements at 21 CFR 107.100, opened 2025-05-14 under Operation Stork Speed, which does not touch the import or labeling rules the Quote blames for the 2022 shortage. A search of the Federal Register full text for "imported infant formula" returns nothing published since 2025-01-20.
- CBP final rule: Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption for Merchandise Arriving Through All Modes Other Than the International Postal Network
- CBP final rule: Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption for Mail Shipments and New Postal Informal Entry Process
- Presidential proclamation: Adjusting Imports of Pharmaceuticals and Pharmaceutical Ingredients Into the United States (Section 232)
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Contested Recommendation from “The Case for Free Trade”. This is the ask that most directly opposes the Fair Trade Position: #2077 (end China’s use of the $800 de minimis exemption) and #2075 (expand tariffs to all Chinese products) ask for the restrictions this Quote asks to remove. The CBP de minimis suspensions of 2026-06-24 are therefore the same instrument moving one Position toward its ask and away from this one; they are recorded here as contrary Evidence and belong in #2077’s file as supporting Evidence.
- Not leveled partial on the strength of EO 14293, “Regulatory Relief To Promote Domestic Production of Critical Medicines” (2025-05-05): that order removes regulatory friction from domestic production, which is the opposite of opening supply chains to imports.
- The baby-formula half of the Quote is researched in full at #2118.
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- Supply chain restrictions
- ID
- 2099