As the vapor product industry begins its big shift away from China under the guidance of the Trump Administration, there are some manufacturers who are doing everything they can to avoid the inevitable.
The Chinese vape/e-cigarette manufacturers Lost Mary, RAZ, Maxus, OXBAR, and Geek Bar are allegedly trying to dodge President Donald Trump's aggressive tariffs on China by shipping products through Indonesia. Geek Bar currently supplies the lion's share of vapor products to the U.S.
Geek Bar is one of the most well-known and popular vape brands, officially generating $600 million in sales in 2024 alone and likely over $1 billion through independent retailers and specialty vape shops.
Geek Bar's products, to date, have never received FDA approval for marketing, and now there are legitimate questions about potentially mislabeled products being sold by the company to retailers across the country.
If true, this begs the question of whether their business practices could violate the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act.
Another player in the industry, Happy Distro, is using a complicated corporate structure spanning multiple states and Canada to potentially manipulate the market. They appear to be an American company, but appear to be owned by Chinese Nationals under the name of YLSN.
YLSN has been named a defendant in a major case involving multiple companies for “illegally distributing, marketing, and selling flavored disposable vapes” in New York.
"The Chinese criminal market hurts the American marketplace because it produces and sells a product that is 100% illegal and is contraband," said Rich Marianos, former U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Assistant Director and co-founder of the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network (TLEN). "The Trump administration continues to do a solid job by regulating legal products in the marketplace that are manufactured for tobacco harm reduction, and by providing law enforcement with funds to deter these high-value targets.
The Trump Administration's Hard Line on Illegal Chinese Vape Products.
According to Nicotine Insider, Chinese exports of vape and e-cigarette products have dropped dramatically due to these tariffs and more stringent enforcement by the Trump Administration, whose tariffs on China peaked at 145% in April.
There is certainly motivation for any industry to move manufacturing out of China and to the U.S., but that doesn't appear to be happening across the board, yet.
Records indicate that Geek Bar factories are likely, or could be on the islands of Batam and Bintan, allowing Geek Bar to potentially falsely claim Indonesian origin.
As a result, illegal Chinese vapes are sold through gray market channels into the United States, wherein Chinese exporters would sell to American wholesalers, who would falsely label the vapes "electronics" and then sell to retailers.
Enforcement Isn’t Coming, It’s Here
On September 10th of this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced the seizure of 4.7 million units of unauthorized e-cigarette products valued at more than $86 million, marking the largest operation of its kind. The joint action in Chicago targeted incoming shipments and halted illegal products before they could enter U.S. commerce.
Federal officials say the scale of the seizure reflects a broader crackdown on noncompliant imports, particularly e-cigarettes manufactured in China that routinely evade U.S. safety and labeling rules. Regulators expect enforcement actions to intensify as agencies move to intercept illegal shipments at ports of entry and prevent unregulated products from reaching American consumers.
Governor DeSantis is Committed to Safety and Transparency
In Florida, the Republican-led legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis have taken a firm stance against illegal vape products from China.
In a recent interview with The Floridian, Gov. DeSantis asserted that he supported "100%" efforts to shut down the Chinese vaping black market because "Some of this stuff is dangerous."
"They tried to basically ban vaping in Florida a couple years ago and I vetoed it. I mean they basically said you couldn't have any flavor and you know my view was I talked to these vapors like they had been addicted they're addicted to nicotine they had smoked cigarettes for 10, 20 years," said Gov. DeSantis, adding, " vaping was something that that they like but it is less risky than the cigarettes, so it's kind of like a harm reduction model."
DeSantis added, "You know, why would we want to do that? And one of the things that informed me on that was if you didn’t do that all the black market it would be even worse with China," He then agreed the focus should be about safeguarding and promoting American vape companies and their position in this space.
"There are premarket vaping products that actually market to children that are produced with flavors including menthol, and the FDA is supposed to be going through a procedure that would get those off the shelves," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) told The Floridian. "They're on the shelves illegally. They don't have approval and they're dragging their feet."
Finally, last week saw Representative Beth Van Duyne's (R-TX) Ensuring the Necessary Destruction of Illicit Chinese Tobacco (END) Act, which empowers the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to destroy illegal tobacco and vape products entering the United States from foreign sources, be included in the yearly agricultural appropriations bill.
The re-shoring of a once U.S. dominated vaping industry promises to separate the bad actors from those who truly want to live up to the "harm reduction" mission, which is the future-- Just ask Governor DeSantis.
