USPS Withdrawing from UPU could mean higher prices

[Drewk86a]

Last year Donald Trump announced the United States would be withdrawing from the Universal Postal Union (UPU) effective October 17, 2019.

The UPU was established by the Treaty of Bern in 1874 and since then has provided universal service, stabilized pricing and movement of mail and packages between its 192 member nations. Prior to the UPU, to mail a letter from the Vienna, Virginia, to Vienna, Austria you had to affix a separate stamp (in the correct (amount) for each country that your letter / package would travel through on route to its destination. That could mean you would need stamps from Austria, France, and possibly Germany and you'd have to know the correct postage amount for each leg of the route. The UPU solved those problems with each member nation agreeing to accept and deliver mail from other member nations.

One of the sticking points for Trump is Terminal Dues, which the amount one country pays to another for agreeing to process their mail. It should come as no surprise that Trump believes China is not paying their "fair share" of Terminal Dues which mean packages sent from China to US are cheaper than those sent from US to China.

To address this issue, Trump is threatening to pull the US out of the UPU. Of course, the US / China issues does not happen in a vacuum and Unfortunately, the US leaving the UPU could mean higher postage for all of the other 191 countries in the UPU sending packages to or receiving them from US mailers.

Small package rates from the US to Canada are already too high. This could send them even higher.

A final decision will be made by the US State Department, and and offer to renegotiate Terminal Dues is on the table. Sadly, this type of tactic is common for Trump. Threaten to break a treaty if it is not renegotiated.

[subban7677]

This guy loves to cut off his nose just to spite his face.

[30ranfordfan]

I read about this a while back. I have no desire to get into a long debate about the state of US Politics, but I will simply state that I am no fan of Trump.

Unlike a lot of what he's done, when it comes to international treaties, this actually makes a lot of sense to me.

That it costs more to send a package from New York to Beijing, than it does from Beijing to New York, isn't necessarily a problem. The fact that it costs substantially less to send a package from Beijing to New York, than it does from Chicago: I do raise an eyebrow at that, and wonder "why?".

The why is pretty simple. The American government (via USPS) subsidizes the cost of shipping things into America from other countries. It's part of why Chinese goods are so cheap to buy online.

As far as hockey cards go...... I'm willing to bet Canad & USA aren't actually subsidizing packages much. The cost for me to send a package to America is actually quite a bit higher than USA to Canada. My bet is that that cost sharing between our two countries is pretty equal.