**Introduction** Multilateral cooperation can help curb unilateral de minimis rollbacks, but it is more likely to shape these reforms than prevent them. Cooperation can support shared rules for tax collection, customs data, risk management, and transparency. However, de minimis thresholds remain national policy choices, and governments increasingly treat low-value imports as a revenue, enforcement, competition, and security issue[1]. **Contextual background** De minimis rules allow goods below a specified value to enter with simplified customs treatment and, in some cases, without duties or taxes. They were designed to reduce administrative costs for low-value trade. The growth of cross-border e-commerce has changed their policy significance, as large parcel volumes have raised concerns over tax leakage, undervaluation, counterfeit goods, unsafe products, and competitive pressure on domestic retailers[1]. **How multilateral cooperation can curb unilateral rollbacks** **1.** **Cooperation can reduce pressure for blanket removal** Multilateral cooperation can help improve the integrity of de minimis regimes by separating tax collection from customs simplification. Governments can remove value-added tax or goods and services tax exemptions for low-value imports while retaining simplified customs procedures for compliant shipments. This reduces the fiscal and fairness arguments for removing de minimis treatment altogether[2]. A practical model is the use of simplified vendor or platform-based tax collection systems. These systems place more responsibility on sellers and platforms to collect tax before goods reach the border, reducing the burden on customs authorities and consumers. They do not remove national discretion over thresholds, but they can make unilateral rollbacks less necessary by addressing the revenue problem more directly[3]. **2.** **Cooperation can improve customs enforcement** Unilateral rollbacks are often driven by practical enforcement challenges as well as political pressure. Customs agencies must assess the seller, value, classification, and risk profile of millions of small parcels, often with limited or inconsistent data. Cooperation through the World Customs Organization can help improve advance electronic data, strengthen risk screening, support information sharing, and improve coordination with platforms and logistics providers[4]. Better data allows customs agencies to target high-risk shipments without slowing all low-value trade. A coordinated approach can therefore reduce the perceived need for blunt national measures, though governments facing acute security, counterfeit, or product safety concerns may still tighten low-value import rules unilaterally. **3.** **Cooperation can limit discrimination and policy volatility** The World Trade Organization can help curb unilateral rollbacks by increasing transparency around new de minimis measures. Recent changes to low-value import treatment have shown how quickly de minimis policy can become part of broader tariff escalation, creating uncertainty for consumers, firms, postal operators, and trading partners[5]. Multilateral disciplines could encourage governments to provide advance notice, transition periods, clear valuation rules, and non-discriminatory implementation. This would not prevent reform, but it would reduce abrupt and selective rollbacks that fragment trade conditions. The realistic objective is not to preserve existing thresholds indefinitely, but to make changes more predictable and less discriminatory. **4.** **Cooperation can protect small firms and consumers** A purely unilateral approach could address enforcement concerns while creating excessive compliance costs. If low-value imports become subject to full customs procedures without simplified alternatives, consumers face higher prices and small and medium-sized enterprises face heavier paperwork. Multilateral cooperation can help preserve simplified channels for compliant low-value trade while strengthening enforcement against undervaluation, illicit goods, and tax avoidance[1]. This is the strongest argument for cooperation: it allows governments to reform de minimis rules without eliminating the trade facilitation benefits that made those rules useful. Still, cooperation is more likely to shape the design of reform than stop it, because domestic retailers, revenue authorities, and security agencies often have strong incentives to press for tighter national rules. **Conclusion** Multilateral cooperation can help curb unilateral de minimis rollbacks, but it is more likely to moderate them than prevent them. The best outcome is not a single global de minimis threshold, but a shared framework for tax collection, customs data, platform responsibility, and risk-based enforcement. Such cooperation would reduce abuse while preserving the efficiency benefits of low-value trade. Without it, de minimis reform is likely to proceed through fragmented national measures that increase costs for consumers, firms, and customs systems.
