Parents are standing guard at schools. Some restaurants have stopped delivering food or simply closed. “Every single person who looks brown is scared,” a lawyer said.

© Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

An informal network of last-mile runners close the gap between harried delivery drivers and hungry office workers in a Shenzhen skyscraper.

Postal workers walked off the job to protest cost-cutting measures ordered by the government that are likely to lead to major job losses.

The end of the “de minimis” exemption — which allowed packages less than $800 to enter the U.S. tariff-free — is leading to confusion.