25 countries suspend postal services to US over tariffs: UN

[GENEVA] At least 25 countries have decided to suspend package deliveries to the United States, as concern grows over the impact of US President Donald Trump’s looming tariffs, a UN body said on Tuesday (Aug 26).

The Trump administration said late last month that it will abolish a tax exemption on small packages entering the United States from Aug 29.

The move has sparked a flurry of announcements from postal services, including in France, Britain, Germany, Italy, India, Australia and Japan, that most US-bound packages would no longer be accepted.

The United Nations’ Universal Postal Union (UPU) said it had already been advised by 25 member countries that their postal operators “have suspended their outbound postal services to the US, citing uncertainties specifically related to transit services”.

It said that the suspensions will remain in place until there is more clarity on how US authorities plan to implement the announced measures.

The UPU did not provide a list of postal services it had heard from.

Considerable operational changes

The organisation, which was established in 1874 and counts 192 member states, warned that the new US measures would “entail considerable operational changes for postal operators around the world”.

From Friday, the UPU said that the measures would require postal carriers delivering packages to the United States “to collect customs duties from senders in advance”, on behalf of the US Customs and Border Protection agency.

India’s communications ministry said at the weekend that Trump’s executive order issued last month requires transport carriers or other “qualified parties” approved by US authorities to collect and remit the tariff duties.

But “several critical processes relating to the designation of ‘qualified parties’ and mechanisms for duty collection and remittance remain undefined”, it said.

Under the new US measures, individual customers will still be able to send documents and items worth up to US$100 as presents to the country without being taxed.

But anything above that value is expected to be hit with the same tariff rates applied to other imports from the sending country.

That means 15 per cent for countries in the European Union and 50 per cent for India.

And Germany’s postal service DHL warned last week that even exempted items would be subject to extra checks to prevent the service being used for commercial goods.

Sustainable solutions

The UPU stressed that it was “taking all possible measures to prepare its member countries for the impacts (the new measures) may have on their postal flows”.

UPU chief Masahiko Metoki had sent a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday to convey member countries’ concern regarding the operational disruptions, it said.

Pointing to the short implementation timeline and voicing particular concern over the impact on the delivery of e-commerce items, the union said that it was “working with the relevant US authorities to ensure that information on the operational requirements of the measures is communicated effectively to other member countries”.

In parallel, it said that it was working with “relevant postal stakeholders” to help find sustainable solutions, including one initiative aimed at developing a system to facilitate duty collection and remittance across its network. AFP