Technologies

What Is DHgate? App Surges in Popularity, but Might Not Be Helpful Against Tariffs

American consumers have become enamored with the Chinese shopping app DHgate, but hopes that it might be a way around President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda don’t hold up to scrutiny.

President Donald Trump’s contentious barrage of tariffs has people asking a lot of questions: What will they actually do to prices? Should I make that big purchase now? However, one question the White House probably didn’t see coming is consumers wondering how they can do more shopping from China. And the answer to that might be DHgate.

On April 16, the Chinese shopping service DHgate boasted the second-most downloaded free app on Apple’s App Store, behind only OpenAI’s ChatGPT. According to a report from Yahoo Finance, the previous week, it was 352nd on the same list, indicating a stratospheric rise in popularity largely attributed to popular TikTok creators advocating for the e-commerce platform as a way to buy directly from China. As of April 25, it was still the 12th most popular shopping app on the App Store.

So what is DHgate precisely? It’s an online shopping platform based in China that has been around since 2004. Similar in function and appearance to other popular sites like Shein and Temu, DHgate allows consumers to make purchases directly from manufacturers in China. It has gained popularity online for its selection of dupes, which are copies of popular brand-name products sold at much lower prices.

According to Yahoo Finance, numerous Chinese influencers have advocated for international consumers to buy these sorts of products on platforms like DHgate. They argue that many high-end brands buy cheaply made goods from Chinese factories and then sell them with sizable mark-ups.

DHgate did not respond to CNET’s request for comment. The company did, however, give a statement to Yahoo in which it said it is «grateful yet remain(s) humble about this phenomenal surge in traffic.»

Will DHgate help you get around tariffs?

While tariffs are credited with helping juice DHgate’s popularity, the unfortunate reality is that it — and apps like it — will not help you get around Trump’s new tariffs.

China has long been a fixation of Trump’s global trade agenda. The country was the primary target of tariffs and policies during his first term and has remained the biggest target on his second-term agenda, featuring a 10% universal tax on imports from all nations and higher rates for countries with trade imbalances with the US. However, the latter has largely been delayed until July. For now, China’s rates remain in effect, with a base 20% tariff and an additional 125% «reciprocal» tariff bringing the total tax to 145%, a number that has steadily been increasing as the countries retaliate back-and-forth.

Before the second Trump administration, you might have been able to use sites like DHgate to get cheap goods directly from China and avoid import taxes due to a rule known as the «de minimis exception,» which stated that purchases under $800 would not be subject to tariffs or other duties. This rule, however, was done away with via an executive order from Trump and is set to expire next month. So, our advice? If DHgate’s offerings sound appealing to you, get in while the getting’s good.

Speaking with CNET via email, Patti Brennan, CEO of Key Financial, predicted that apps like DHgate wouldn’t be a permanent solution even if they did offer a way around tariffs, as the Trump administration would get wind of them eventually and could «close this loophole one way or the other.»

Technologies

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Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 22 #598

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Oct. 22, No. 598.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one — I definitely have at least two of these in my house. Some of the answers are a bit tough to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Catch all.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: A mess of items.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

BATE, LICE, SLUM, CAPE, HOLE, CARE, BARE, THEN, SLAM, SAMBA, BACK

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

TAPE, COIN, PENCIL, BATTERY, SHOELACE, THUMBTACK

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is JUNKDRAWER. To find it, look for the J that’s five letters down on the far-left row, and wind down, over and then up.

Quick tips for Strands

#1: To get more clue words, see if you can tweak the words you’ve already found, by adding an «S» or other variants. And if you find a word like WILL, see if other letters are close enough to help you make SILL, or BILL.

#2: Once you get one theme word, look at the puzzle to see if you can spot other related words.

#3: If you’ve been given the letters for a theme word, but can’t figure it out, guess three more clue words, and the puzzle will light up each letter in order, revealing the word.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Oct. 22, #1586

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Oct. 22, No. 1,586.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle features some letters I don’t often guess, but it’s not terribly difficult. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has one repeated letter.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has one vowel.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with S.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with T.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to an action displaying spectacular skill and daring.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is STUNT.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Oct. 21, No. 1,585 was DETOX.

Recent Wordle answers

Oct. 17, No. 1,581: GROSS
Oct. 18, No. 1,582: HAVEN
Oct. 19, No. 1,583: IDEAL
Oct. 20, No. 1,584: LIMBO

Quick tips for Wordle

#1: Check our list ranking the popularity of all the letters in the alphabet and choose your starter words accordingly. (TRAIN, STERN and AUDIO are good.)

#2: Don’t forget that letters can be used more than once.

#3: Many words are similar. You don’t want to use up multiple guesses that don’t advance your cause. So if the puzzle is STA_E, don’t guess STARE, STATE and STALE. Guess something that uses that R, T and L, like TWIRL.