[TeMPOraL]

This makes me wonder, where are the lobbyists/interest groups? Local e-commerce platforms are losing non-negligible amounts of money when people are ordering on AliExpress instead of locally - surely they have every incentive to pressure their respective governments to make AliExpress orders more expensive? On the other hand, maybe they are lobbying for their cause, but all the dropshippers are lobbying even harder in favor of AliExpress?

[simonh]

That’s just an out-and-out argument for protectionism of all kinds. Local providers always want tariff and regulatory barriers against foreign competition. That doesn’t mean it’s in the general interests of customers and the economy for them to get it. It’s just a tax on you to subsidise their jobs. Why shouldn’t they pay a tax to subsidise your job?

It is more complex even than that though. Where do local e-commerce suppliers get a lot of their wares from? In a lot of cases that’s China. Why should they get to do that with no tariffs, but if you do it you get hit by tariffs? Barriers like that often end up hurting everyone.