WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States announced Wednesday that it is preparing to pull out of an international postal treaty that allows China to ship packages to America at discounted rates. The move would escalate a trade dispute with China.
President Donald Trump argues that the 144-year-old Universal Post Union benefits China and other countries at the expense of U.S. businesses — making it cheaper to ship packages from Beijing to New York than from San Francisco to the U.S. East coast, which particularly benefits Chinese manufacturers. The officials say the treaty is used by shippers of the narcotic fentanyl to the U.S. from China.
The U.S. is willing to renegotiate the treaty over the next year but will leave the union if no agreement can be reached, the officials said.
Bishar Hussein, director of the Universal Postal Union, said he regrets the U.S. decision and will seek a meeting with American officials.
The move was welcomed by the U.S National Association of Manufacturers, which called the exiting postal pact “outdated” in the age of e-commerce and at a time of Chinese manufacturing dominance.
“Manufacturers and manufacturing workers in the United States will greatly benefit from a modernized and far more fair arrangement with China,” Jay Timmons, president of the manufacturers association, said in a statement.
The U.S. and China are already locked in a trade war. The United States has imposed tariffs on about $250 billion in Chinese goods, and Beijing has responded by targeting about $110 billion in U.S. products.
The world’s two biggest economies are clashing over U.S. allegations that China is using predatory practices to challenge American technological dominance. These include hacking into U.S. companies’ computers to steal trade secrets and forcing American firms to hand over technology to China in exchange for access to the Chinese market.
Trump has made a point of cutting America’s international ties. His first week in office he pulled the United States out of a trade pact with 11 Pacific Rim countries. He also has left UNESCO and the United Nations Human Rights Council and pulled U.S. funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
The Art of the Schlemiel
Clearly our “president” Drumpf will not be satisfied until the world economy and our international relations are in complete shambles. Hair fuhrer is a very clumsy bull and all the world is a china shop.
The postal union dates back to 1874. It is the mother of all international conventions and unions. It is, in many ways, the direct ancestor of the UN. It opened the door to a growing web of international conventions that had people convinced (wrongly, of course) that the world had become too tightly knit for global war to break out.
It’s why you can put a US stamp on a letter and have it delivered anywhere in the world and why you can send a letter from anywhere here.
It’s just more goddamn idiot vandalism, the acts of ignorant barbarian invaders idly trashing the trappings and fabric of a civilization they’re too stupid and violent to understand and thus hate and fear.
For those that listen to podcasts, there was a Planet Money episode a few months back on this.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/episode-857-the-postal-illuminati
ETA: I’m certain the GOP/Trump administration will find a way to completely screw it up.
What a “…” idea! Offend and infuriate the country we depend upon for just about everything we consume and use in the United States! What could possibly go wrong?
The conservative/republican custom is to make
bighumongous bucks by wrecking the US economy, and then stand back (complaining, criticizing and impeding) while the Liberals rebuild the economy.But I think the crash of 2007 and subsequent very difficult recovery was probably the last time this was possible for the US to do. We are fast losing our economic trust and control in the world, thanks to Trump and his masters unquenchable and unstoppable greed.