Chelsey Dulaney

At first, this business kind of ground to a halt in the U.S.

So you can see it through the trade data.

You know, exports from China of these low value packages just completely collapsed to the U.S.

Some of the companies weren't even shipping to the U.S.

because the customs rules and the tariffs were so onerous and they didn't even know if they were going to get stuff in.

So it was very, very chaotic in the initial weeks.

One thing you see very clearly through the data is there was a huge surge around the same time of these low-value packages coming into Europe.

Europe is underdeveloped for a lot of Chinese manufacturers.

Like Europe is famously bureaucratic and it's a bit complicated because of all the different countries.

And so, you know, a lot of Chinese e-commerce companies had just kind of focused on the U.S.

because it's easier to sell there, it's bigger, it's wealthier.

And, you know, Europe is bureaucratic and difficult to operate in.

So I think they hadn't put a ton of resources into it until Trump's trade tensions started to make them question the U.S.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's been a huge shock how effectively Chinese companies have found new places to sell all of the stuff they make.

Their exports to the U.S.

are down about 20% in 2025, but they have more than made up for that by selling it to other places like Southeast Asia and in particular Europe.

Yeah.

So I guess the first thing you have to do if you want to sell in Europe on an e-commerce platform is you have to get the goods to Europe.

So after the tariffs went into effect, what we saw was a big shift in the air cargo market.

So all of these air freighters that carry goods all around the world, they started moving their capacity to Europe.