Postal deliveries from around the world to the United States have plummeted by 80 percent since President Trump lifted the “de minimis” exception that allowed small packages worth less than $800 to be exempt from tariffs, a United Nations body has found.
The Universal Postal Union (UPU), a U.N. agency that works on global postal cooperation, said postal traffic had gone down 80 percent to the U.S. since Aug. 29, when the rule went into effect.
The group said it would be working to get more packages to go to the United States by developing a technical solution that could help ensure required duties are collected. One reason for the huge drop in traffic is that the duties on the low-valued packages had to be collected by new parties. Air carriers did not want to bear the responsibility, the UPU said, and there was no new link for postal operators in other countries.
“The UPU has in its mission the responsibility to guarantee the free circulation of postal items over a single postal territory. We’re working to uphold that responsibility with the rapid development of a new technical solution that will help get mail moving to the United States again,” said UPU Director General Masahiko Metoki.
The group said starting on Sept. 5, postal operators will be able to access a landed-cost calculator via an application programming interface that can be plugged into their retail and counter solutions. It said this would allow postal operators to calculate and collect the required duties from customers at origin.
UPU said it had been informed by 88 different postal operators that they had suspended some or all postal services to the U.S. until a solution was implemented, highlighting the massive impact of Trump’s de minimis order.
It said its solution would be integrated into its Customs Declaration System platform, which it said would gradually allow 176 postal operators already using the platform to take advantage of the solution.
Even before the de minimis rule was thrown out in August, Trump had ended it for China.
This had left discount retailers like Shein and Temu scrambling to change their distribution models. They also raised their prices for people sending the lower-cost packages.