Temu

Quick Take

Temu's politics are not left versus right; they are Washington versus Beijing, and both parties have taken a swing. A bipartisan House committee reported in June 2023 that there is an "extremely high risk" of forced labor in Temu's supply chains and that Temu and Shein paid zero dollars in import duties in 2022, while Gap paid $700 million.[1] President Trump closed the tariff exemption that underpinned Temu's low US prices in May 2025, and the platform lost more than half of its daily US users within a month.[4] Republican attorneys general have sued it as "malware," the FTC has fined it, European regulators hit it with a 200 million euro fine in May 2026, and a Republican senator has asked the DOJ to investigate it, while Temu denies the central allegations and keeps selling.

The $800 Loophole That Built an Empire

For most of its US existence, Temu's business model rested on a single line of trade law: the de minimis exemption, which let packages worth less than $800 enter the United States duty free and with minimal customs inspection. Temu shipped individual orders directly from Chinese factories to American doorsteps, so nearly every package qualified. The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party estimated in its June 2023 interim findings that Temu and Shein together were likely responsible for more than 30 percent of all packages entering the United States daily under the de minimis provision, roughly 600,000 packages a day.[1] The committee reported that in 2022 the two companies paid zero dollars in import duties, while Gap paid $700 million and H&M paid $205 million.[2]

That advantage became a bipartisan target. The Biden administration proposed rules in September 2024 to bar Chinese goods subject to tariffs from the exemption.[3] President Trump went further, ending de minimis treatment for Chinese shipments by executive order effective May 2, 2025, and later extending the policy to shipments from all countries. The effect on Temu was immediate: the platform lost 58 percent of its daily US users in May 2025, according to Sensor Tower data, and slashed its US advertising.[4] Temu responded by rebuilding around US-based fulfillment, recruiting American sellers who ship from domestic warehouses, and it resumed advertising on Meta and Google in late June 2025.[5] Its US recovery has been partial: by late summer 2025 its share of US online spending stood at roughly 1.1 percent, down from a peak of 1.7 percent that April, while 90 percent of its 405 million global monthly users were outside the United States.[5][4]

An Extremely High Risk of Forced Labor

In June 2023, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, then chaired by Republican Mike Gallagher with Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi as ranking member, published interim findings from its investigation into Temu, Shein, Nike, and Adidas. The report's language about Temu was unusually blunt for a bipartisan document: it found an "extremely high risk that Temu's supply chains are contaminated with forced labor" and said the company had failed "to maintain even the facade of a meaningful compliance program" under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.[1] Gallagher said the results were "shocking: Temu is doing next to nothing to keep its supply chains free from slave labor."[1] The committee also noted that because de minimis packages face less customs scrutiny, the exemption made forced labor enforcement harder.[2]

These are the committee's findings and characterizations, based in part on the company's own responses to its inquiry; Temu was not charged with a crime. The report is cited across nearly every subsequent political action against the company.

Malware or Marketplace: The Lawsuits

In June 2024, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, a Republican and former congressman, filed the first state lawsuit against Temu's parent companies, alleging violations of Arkansas consumer protection and data privacy laws. His language was striking for a consumer case: "Temu is not an online marketplace like Amazon or Walmart. It is a data-theft business that sells goods online as a means to an end," Griffin said, calling the app "functionally malware and spyware."[6] The complaint alleges the app is designed to gain broad access to a user's phone and to change its own code after installation.[7] Temu called the allegations "based on misinformation circulated online, primarily from a short-seller," and said it would defend itself vigorously.[7] Kentucky's attorney general filed a similar suit in July 2025 after his office conducted its own investigation, and by early 2026 the list of states had widened: Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers sued PDD Holdings and Whaleco over the same malware allegations, and in February 2026 Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit calling Temu "Chinese Communist spyware disguised as a shopping app," one of four anti-CCP suits he announced in a single week during early voting in his US Senate primary.[22][23] The malware framing has a documented precedent: in March 2023, Google suspended Temu's sister app Pinduoduo from the Play Store after security researchers reported finding malware in versions of the app, an action both state lawsuits cite.[8]

Federal action has come from multiple directions. In September 2025, the FTC announced that Temu operator Whaleco Inc. would pay a $2 million civil penalty in the first-ever enforcement action under the INFORM Consumers Act, for failing to give shoppers required tools to report suspicious sellers and stolen or counterfeit goods; Temu said it had worked closely with the agency throughout the investigation.[9] In Europe, the Commission opened formal Digital Services Act proceedings against Temu in October 2024, issued preliminary findings in July 2025 that the platform failed to properly assess the risk of illegal products reaching consumers, and in May 2026 finalized a non-compliance decision with a 200 million euro fine; Temu has until August 28, 2026 to submit a remediation plan.[20][21] And in December 2025, Republican Senator Tom Cotton asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to have the DOJ and Homeland Security investigate Temu and Shein for large-scale intellectual property theft and counterfeiting.[11]

No Campaign Money in Washington

Notably absent from Temu's political record: campaign money. Federal law bars foreign nationals from contributing to US campaigns, and Temu has no US corporate PAC and no reported federal candidate contributions. Its Washington story is regulatory, not electoral.

Three Billion Dollars in Ads

Whatever Americans think of Temu's politics, most of them met the company through its advertising. Temu ran its first Super Bowl ad in February 2023, months after launching, and returned in 2024 with an ad that aired six times during and around the game alongside $10 million in giveaways.[12] The Wall Street Journal reported Temu was Meta's single largest advertiser in 2023, spending about $2 billion, and J.P. Morgan estimated its total 2024 marketing budget at roughly $3 billion.[13][14] That spending made Temu the most downloaded app in the United States and, by some analyses, drove up advertising prices for everyone else.[14] The spending stopped abruptly when the de minimis change hit in spring 2025, then resumed that summer as the company rebuilt its US operation.[5]

Products & Services

Temu sells low-priced general merchandise across nearly every consumer category: apparel, home goods, electronics accessories, beauty, toys, tools, and seasonal items. Most goods historically shipped directly from manufacturers in China; since late 2024 the platform has also recruited US-based sellers who fulfill orders from domestic warehouses.[15] Product safety and counterfeit concerns have followed the catalog: the European Commission's analysis found shopping on Temu carries a high risk of encountering unsafe products such as small toys and electronics.[20]

From Shanghai to Dublin

Temu's US operating subsidiary, Whaleco Inc., was incorporated in Boston in 2022 under PDD Holdings; "Temu" is the consumer marketplace brand it runs.[10] PDD was founded in Shanghai in 2015 by Colin Huang, a former Google engineer who built Pinduoduo into one of China's largest e-commerce platforms; Temu's rise helped make him China's richest person in August 2024 by Bloomberg's count.[16] In 2023 PDD Holdings renamed itself and began listing its headquarters as Dublin, Ireland rather than Shanghai in SEC filings.[17] The company reported fiscal 2025 revenue of RMB431.8 billion, roughly $61 billion, up 10 percent, with net income of RMB99.4 billion, roughly $14 billion, down 12 percent from 2024, as tariffs and heavy platform investment squeezed margins.[18] First quarter 2026 revenue rose 11 percent.[19] As a foreign private issuer, PDD files an annual 20-F rather than a US proxy statement and does not disclose individual executive compensation the way US public companies do.

Where to Find Them

Temu sells direct to consumers at temu.com and through its mobile app on iOS and Android. It has no physical stores. The platform operates in more than 90 markets worldwide, and shipping to US customers now comes from a mix of US warehouses and direct China shipments depending on the product and the tariff environment.[15][5]

Footnotes

[1] Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, "Select Committee Releases Interim Findings from Shein & Temu Forced Labor Investigation," June 22, 2023. https://chinaselectcommittee.house.gov/media/press-releases/select-committee-releases-interim-findings-shein-temu-forced-labor

[2] House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Fast Fashion and the Uyghur Genocide: Interim Findings, June 22, 2023. https://chinaselectcommittee.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/fast-fashion-and-the-uyghur-genocide-interim-findings.pdf

[3] Gabrielle Fonrouge, CNBC, "Biden takes aim at Shein and Temu with new rules to close trade loophole," September 13, 2024. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/13/de-minimis-shein-temu-biden-china-rules.html

[4] Reuters via The Globe and Mail, "Temu loses more than half its daily U.S. users as 'de minimis' loophole ends," June 2, 2025. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-temu-pdd-holdings-de-minimis-trump-tariffs-china/

[5] eMarketer, "US shoppers return to Temu as company resumes advertising, direct shipping from China," August 2025. https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-shoppers-return-to-temu

[6] Arkansas Attorney General, "Attorney General Griffin Sues Chinese E-Commerce Company Temu for Deceiving Arkansans, Illegally Accessing Their Personal Information," June 25, 2024. https://arkansasag.gov/news-release/attorney-general-griffin-sues-chinese-e-commerce-company-temu-for-deceiving-arkansans-illegally-accessing-their-personal-information/

[7] Adam Smith, Fashion Dive, "Temu is a 'data-theft business,' Arkansas attorney general says in lawsuit," June 26, 2024. https://www.fashiondive.com/news/temu-lawsuit-consumer-protection-arkansas/719927/

[8] PIRG Education Fund, "Does Temu misuse your personal data? More state attorneys general say yes," August 27, 2025. https://pirg.org/edfund/articles/does-temu-misuse-your-personal-data-more-state-attorneys-general-say-yes/

[9] Federal Trade Commission, "Whaleco, Inc. d/b/a Temu, U.S. v.," settlement announced September 5, 2025. https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/232-3096-whaleco-inc-dba-temu-us-v

[10] UPI, "Online retail giant Temu ordered to pay $2M for consumer violations," September 8, 2025. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/09/08/Temu-ordered-pay-2-million-consimer-violatons/3641757368695/

[11] Insider Monkey, citing Reuters, "Republican Senator Asks DOJ and Homeland Security to Investigate PDD Holdings Inc.'s (PDD) TEMU," December 10, 2025. https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/republican-senator-asks-doj-and-homeland-security-to-investigate-pdd-holdings-inc-s-pdd-temu-1656974/

[12] Bloomberg, "Temu Spent Millions on Six Super Bowl Ads as It Tries to Win Back US Shoppers," February 12, 2024. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-12/temu-spent-millions-on-six-super-bowl-ads-as-it-tries-to-win-back-us-shoppers

[13] Seeking Alpha, citing The Wall Street Journal, "Google, Meta see big ad spending in US by PDD's shopping app Temu," March 7, 2024. https://seekingalpha.com/news/4077209-google-meta-see-big-ad-spending-in-us-from-pdds-shopping-app-temu

[14] Digital Commerce 360, "Why Temu spends millions on Super Bowl commercials," February 12, 2024. https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2024/02/12/why-temu-spends-millions-on-super-bowl-commercials/

[15] Shopify, "How to Sell on Temu: Guide for US Sellers (2026)," accessed June 11, 2026. https://www.shopify.com/blog/how-to-sell-on-temu

[16] Venus Feng, Diana Li and Zheping Huang, Bloomberg via Business Standard, "Temu owner's billionaire founder Colin Huang becomes China's richest person," August 9, 2024. https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/temu-owner-s-billionaire-founder-colin-huang-becomes-china-s-richest-person-124080900232_1.html

[17] Lionel Lim, Fortune, "Pinduoduo founder Colin Huang surges past Alibaba's Jack Ma to become China's third-richest person," October 25, 2023. https://fortune.com/asia/2023/10/25/pdd-founder-colin-huang-hurun-rich-list-pinduoduo-temu-china-richest-person

[18] PDD Holdings Inc., SEC Form 6-K, Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2025 Results, filed March 25, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1737806/000110465926034813/tm269789d1_ex99-1.htm

[19] PDD Holdings Inc., SEC Form 6-K, First Quarter 2026 Results, filed May 27, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001737806/000110465926067186/tm2615739d1_ex99-1.htm

[20] European Commission, "Commission fines Temu 200 million euro for breaching the Digital Services Act," May 28, 2026. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-fines-temu-eu200-million-breaching-digital-services-act

[21] ICLG News, "Temu falls foul of European Commission" (non-compliance decision and 200 million euro fine issued May 28, 2026), June 2026. https://iclg.com/news/temu-falls-foul-of-european-commission/

[22] Office of the Texas Attorney General, "Attorney General Ken Paxton Files Fourth Anti-CCP Lawsuit in Three Days by Suing Temu for Deceptive Marketing and Illegal Data Harvesting," February 2026. https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-files-fourth-anti-ccp-lawsuit-three-days-suing-temu-deceptive-marketing

[23] Cozen O'Connor, "No Buyer's Remorse for Nebraska AG Over Temu Data Use Lawsuit" (Nebraska AG Mike Hilgers v. PDD Holdings / Whaleco), 2026. https://www.jdsupra.com/topics/data-privacy/state-attorneys-general/enforcement-actions