The Trump administration will begin withdrawing from a United Nations treaty that offered low rates for foreign postal deliveries of small packages in the US – the latest move to challenge practices it sees as unfairly advantageous to China.
White House officials said on Wednesday the US would start the process of leaving the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a Switzerland-based organisation that connects postal services worldwide.
The White House said the UPU enabled foreign postal services to take advantage of cheap shipments to the US, creating an unfair cost advantage over US companies that shipped goods, and hurting the US Postal Service.
One senior White House said the treaty’s “subsidy” had facilitated the transfer of a high level of counterfeit goods and the narcotic and fentanyl trade.
Another official said the system allowed for a 40% to 70% discount on small packages arriving in the United States from China compared with what it would cost to send them domestically, costing $300m. The official described it as an economic distortion that the administration wanted to correct.
Order signed on 10/17/18...takes a year to withdraw from the Postal Union
10/17/19...JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS.....Happy Christmass CHICOMS.
But according to the letter by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the UPU leadership, the U.S. government “denounces” the organization's Constitution, and the American withdrawal will become effective one year from the date of the letter.