THE American E-Commerce Business Alliance (AEBA)
ENSURING A
FAIR & ROBUST U.S.
E-COMMERCE MARKET
Protecting American Businesses. Strengthening Our Economy. Securing Our Future.
ABOUT AEBA
America’s vibrant e-commerce industry is projected to surpass $1.3 trillion in annual revenue by 2025, accounting for over 17% of total retail sales and more than 4% of U.S. GDP. Yet, American e-commerce businesses face significant threats due to unfair competition from foreign businesses exploiting U.S. laws and marketplaces—resulting in the destruction of countless American small businesses and hundreds of thousands of American jobs.
The American E-Commerce Business Alliance (AEBA), a project of the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA), is committed to ensuring a fair, robust, and secure e-commerce environment in the United States. AEBA advocates for critical policy reforms that level the playing field for American entrepreneurs and businesses, strengthen our domestic market, and protect American consumers from unscrupulous foreign practices.
WHY AEBA?
A powerful alliance advocating
for American economic strength
Currently, U.S. tax, trade, and customs policies discriminate against American e-commerce businesses, inadvertently supporting offshore competitors and threatening the survival of domestic brands. Online marketplaces increasingly favor foreign—often Chinese—businesses, causing severe economic, regulatory, and national security risks. AEBA seeks to change this, advocating for policies that level the playing field and support American entrepreneurs.
DIRECT ADVOCACY
Your voice represented with policymakers in the administration and Congress.
MARKET INTELLIGENCE
Receive comprehensive industry and economic analyses on e-commerce market conditions and threats.
POLICY INFLUENCE
Participate in developing actionable goals to protect your business and industry.
STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS
Have your concerns spotlighted through CPA’s extensive media relationships, influencing national dialogue.
ACCESS & VISIBILITY
Connect directly with key legislative and executive decision-makers at CPA’s Annual Conference and Prosperity Summit.
ACCREDITATION
Officially brand your business as a member of AEBA through your website and marketing materials.
WHY CHOOSE AEBA
MEMBERSHIP LEVELS
& MONTHLY DUES
By becoming a member of AEBA, you join a powerful alliance advocating for policies that support American economic strength, consumer safety, innovation protection, and national security.
AEBA membership levels are set according to the size of your organization.
A FAIR & ROBUST AMERICAN E-COMMERCE MARKET
AEBA'S POLICY PLATFORM
AEBA believes that Americans should be able to shop online with the same confidence as when they walk into a store.
Unfortunately, overarching problems in customs law as well as ongoing challenges with the legal responsibilities of online marketplace platforms are undermining consumer confidence in the U.S. e-commerce market:
Customs Problems: The first problem is that almost uniquely among nations, the United States not only permits unaccountable, judgment-proof overseas vendors ship directly to U.S. consumers with no meaningful security or fees, but it actually subsidizes this outcome. This is why more than half of the sellers on Amazon.com are Chinese businesses. When sellers can retail in our market without consequence for breaking the rules, chaos results. To be clear, Americans have always been able to order merchandise from an overseas vendor, but prior to 1995, when they did so, a customs officer would individually examine that merchandise and catalog it, and the purchaser would pay an appropriate fee to cover that service. The combined effect of this necessary process was that purchases from overseas vendors were effectively limited to specialty items not available domestically, and that Customs Officers were not overwhelmed with small-package direct-to-consumer shipments.
CLOSE THE DE MINIMIS LOOPHOLE
Eliminating the loophole that allows shipments under $800 to be released on simple manifest labels and duty-free.
END THE FALLACY OF 'NON-RESIDENT IMPORTERS'
Domestic importers of record are necessary for tax compliance. The relatively recent authorization of so-called “Non-Resident Importers” should be repealed, as it is incompatible with core principles of customs law.
LITIGATION PROTECTION
Instituting a mandatory 180-day fund hold period to protect consumers and intellectual property rights.
TRANSPARENCY IN IMPORTS
Extend shipping manifest disclosure requirements currently applicable to ocean vessels to air and land cargo for self-policing and accountability.
SHIPPING MANIFEST TRANSPARENCY
Currently, only ocean vessel manifests are disclosed, whereas cargo arriving via air or land remains secret. This discrepancy should be avoided, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection should stop rubber-stamping manifest confidentiality requests. These should be reserved for compelling national security instances.
Online Marketplace Platform Problems: Many laws and taxes that underpin brick and mortar commerce fail to interface with online shopping platforms. For example, while eBay was founded in 1995, it wasn’t until 2018 that all U.S. states adopted “marketplace facilitator” rules that force platforms to collect and remit sales tax. Similarly, many consumer protection laws, like the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, are written only contemplating a brick and mortar retail environment. This and other consumer protection laws need to be updated to deal with the reality of online shopping platforms that do not take title or responsibility for items sold on their platform.
MARKETPLACE TAX WITHOLDING
Implementing a mandatory 25% marketplace withholding tax for foreign sellers.
LIABILITY ACCOUNTABILITY
Before platforms issue payments to foreign entities, require that the foreign entity have appointed a U.S.-based responsible party with liability bonds of at least $1 million held in a U.S. bank. Foreign sellers must be insured through U.S. insurance providers.
SMALL BUSINESS INCENTIVES
Federal incentives encouraging U.S. small businesses to manufacture and invest domestically.
IP PROTECTION
A mandatory 90-day pre-registration for foreign products to allow IP review by American businesses.
MARKETPLACE ACCOUNTABILITY
Holding marketplaces liable for enforcing fair competition and preventing manipulation and counterfeit sales.
EQUAL FEE STRUCTURES
Ensuring marketplaces cannot offer better incentives to foreign sellers.
BENEFITS OF AEBA'S
POLICY REFORMS
Implementing AEBA’s policy proposals would:
READY TO JOIN
OUR MOVEMENT?
ABOUT CPA & AEBA
CPA is America’s leading national bipartisan organization advocating exclusively for U.S. producers and workers across many industries. CPA has long been at the forefront of efforts to rebuild America’s industrial base, reshore manufacturing, strengthen national security, and create broadly shared prosperity. AEBA is CPA’s dedicated project specifically focused on addressing the unique challenges facing American e-commerce businesses today.
CPA's core capabilities—government advocacy, strategic communications, economic analysis, and regulatory expertise—position AEBA to effectively advance policy solutions critical to the American e-commerce landscape.
