US Announces Plans To Withdraw From 144-Year-Old Postal Treaty (thehill.com)

JoeyRox writes: The Trump Administration announced today that it's intending to withdraw from the Universal Postal Union, an international postage rate system overseen by the United Nations. "The decision was borne out of frustration with discounts imposed by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) that allow China and some other nations to ship products into the U.S. at cheaper rates than American companies receive to ship domestically," reports The Hill. "The administration argues the system undercuts U.S. manufacturers and allows China to flood the market with cheap goods." The U.S. is hoping to renegotiate the rates, known as terminal dues, but was frustrated with opposition from other nations in the UPU. According to the report, "The withdrawal would not take effect for one year, allowing the U.S. some time to broker a new deal."

"The 144-year-old UPU sets fees that postal services charge to deliver mail and packages from foreign carriers," reports The Hill. "For decades, developing nations have been allowed to pay lower rates than wealthier nations. China has fallen under the developing nation category, a designation the U.S. says it no longer deserves because of its booming economy." The Trump administration wants to move to a system of "self-declared rates" that would allow the U.S. Postal Service to set its own prices for shipping international packages of all sizes. As it stands, the P.O. is only allowed to use self-declared rates on packages exceeding 4.4 pounds.

Comments

Maximize pain then try to negoatate.

[jellomizer]

Yes Negotiations are long and complex, they take take a long time. At the end of the day there are often some smaller changes where no one is happy.

The Trump administration goes threw this process as well. However during the process he kills what is going on currently, thus putting everyone in pain until the process which would had happened would complete anyways.

When an agreement is made, business connections and contracts are lost. Making going further much more complex. While the inital threat causes a hording instinct, thus inflating short term numbers.

Trump is winning sprints, in a marathon run.

I wondered how long it was going to take the

[mark_reh]

Great One to catch onto this. When he started complaining that Amazon.com was bankrupting the PO, I wondered why he wasn't complaining about the free delivery of goods from China. He's probably pissed off because he found out he could be shipping his neckties from the factories in China for free instead of packing them onto ships and paying whatever duties and delivery costs might be.

Re:Orange Man Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Spotted the NPC

Re: And?

[Anonymous Coward]

he's so far started less wars than Obama did.

Re:And?

[quantaman]

No matter what Trump does, someone will complain. He could achieve permanent world peace, and half the US would complain he's decimating the defense industry and costing jobs.

He can do good things, the problem is he and his administration have also proven himself to be very dishonest, corrupt, and incompetent. So if he announces permanent world peace you need to check that he's actually talking about this planet.

And if he's announces that he's going to withdraw from a major international postal treaty you need to check that:
a) This is a concrete action and not an announcement that will be forgotten 5 minutes later.
b) It's competently thought out and doesn't turn into a counter-productive gong show.
c) He isn't just throwing a tantrum because he likes the idea of leaving international agreements and causing a mess.
d) There isn't some aspect to this that will turn out to profit him immensely.

I mean, maybe this will turn out to be a good idea... but he lost the benefit of the doubt a very long time ago.