Thousands of pieces from Lego’s “Pick a Brick” service are no longer available to customers in the U.S. and Canada as of this week, which could make it harder for hobbyists to customize their sets and replace lost bricks. You can probably blame President Donald Trump.
Pick a Brick is an online service offered by the Lego Store that lets fans order individual pieces for as little as three cents. The Lego news and reviews site New Elementary reports that “thousands of elements” from its “Standard” collection were removed from the service for North American customers on Aug. 25. Approximately 1,500 pieces from its mainstream “Bestseller” collection still remain.
A screenshot of Lego’s Pick a Brick page on Friday, Aug. 29.
Credit: Mashable / Screenshot via Lego.com
Lego is calling the removal a “service pause” in a note at the top of the Pick a Brick landing page. “In the US & Canada, Standard pieces are temporarily unavailable,” the note reads. “You can still shop our Bestseller range which includes thousands of the most popular bricks and pieces ready to order.”
Mashable has reached out to Lego to find out why the company has stopped shipping a swath of its selection, and we’ll update this story if we hear back. But as New Elementary and others note, Trump’s tariff policy is the likely reason.
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More specifically, Trump has eliminated the “de minimis” import rule that exempted packages from taxes and customs duties like tariffs if they amounted to less than $800. The change went into effect on Aug. 29, four days after New Elementary flagged the Standard pieces’ disappearance.
USA Today reports that more than 30 countries have stopped shipping to the U.S. in response to the end of di minimus — including Belgium and the Czech Republic, where Lego has distribution centers. Per New Elementary, Standard Pick a Brick pieces are stored and shipped to North American customers from Lego’s European warehouses, while Bestseller pieces are located in the U.S.
AFOLs in search of Standard pieces that Lego no longer carries might have luck on third-party marketplaces like BrickOwl and BrickLink.
After ending the de minimis exemption for imports from China and Hong Kong in May, Trump ordered its global termination in July. A White House fact sheet announcing de minimis’ suspension called it “a catastrophic loophole used to, among other things, evade tariffs and funnel deadly synthetic opioids as well as other unsafe or below-market products.” But as Mashable previously reported, the end of the exemption will make previously cheap products more expensive for U.S. shoppers, and force small businesses that rely on international goods to decide between absorbing the new costs or increasing their prices.
