cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/35098148
At least 25 countries have decided to suspend package deliveries to the United States, as concern grows over the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s looming tariffs, a UN body said Tuesday.
The Trump administration said late last month that it will abolish a tax exemption on small packages entering the United States from August 29.
The move has sparked a flurry of announcements from postal services, including in France, Britain, Germany, Italy, India, Australia and Japan, that most U.S.-bound packages would no longer be accepted.
The United Nations’ Universal Postal Union said it had already been advised by 25 member countries that their postal operators “have suspended their outbound postal services to the U.S., citing uncertainties specifically related to transit services”.
It said the suspensions will remain in place until there is more clarity on how U.S. authorities plan to implement the announced measures.
The UPU did not provide a list of postal services it had heard from.
Yeah i really don’t think the majority of the population realizes how delicate the global trade system is.
Just recently on August 19th, ALL parts with steel or aluminum in them are tariffed an additional 50%. This covers hundreds of thousands of products we all purchase, and there is ZERO chance of them being manufactured in the USA. This will ruin most of the US economy for those parts as prices skyrocket.
Make sure to buy your car parts NOW before the warehouses are empty and they have to reorder at a 50% higher cost. The tariff covers all car parts including oil filters.
The media is very quiet about this, and we all know why.
Your claims are exaggerated
- Bloomberg Economics estimates the tariffs will reduce U.S. GDP by 0.15% and increase consumer prices by 0.1% over three years.
- The expanded tariffs cover 407 specific product categories—but “hundreds of thousands” overstates the scope.
- The U.S. has domestic steel and aluminum production. Nucor and Cleveland-Cliffs have seen stock price increases, and Minnesota’s iron ore industry has benefited from past tariffs.
- The media isn’t quiet about these issues, you may not understand the issues so you aren’t seeing reports to back up your misunderstanding
Bloomberg can’t make estimates because they don’t know where tariffs will end up. No one does, hence the uncertainty that is hurting the market.
407 product categories. Read that again. Not 407 products, categories.
The US imports 44% of its Aluminum and cannot supply that itself within the next decade even with increased investments.
The media is dead silent on thousands of small businesses that have already folded. Thousands more will go out of business in the next year.
https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/2019/us-china-trade-war-tariffs-date-chart
Average US tariffs on Chinese exports now stand at 57.6 percent and cover 100 percent of all goods.
As a result of numerous Trump administration actions, the average US tariff on all goods imports from the rest of the world increased from 3.0 percent to 20.8 percent between January 20, 2025, and August 27. This includes the 10 percent tariff imposed on April 5 that did not simply increase the average tariff by 10 percentage points due to sectoral carveouts. (Notes: On March 4, 2025, the United States imposed new tariffs on certain imports from Canada and Mexico that ultimately did not “claim and qualify for” preferences under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). That tariff change is not reflected here. Furthermore, the US tariff on all goods imports from the rest of the world temporarily increased to 16.2 percent for one day—on April 9—before President Trump, on that same day, reversed some of his tariffs and paused their increase for 90 days. The current average tariff on imports from the rest of the world is now higher than that April 9 peak.
The first Trump administration-imposed tariffs on thousands of products valued at approximately $380 billion in 2018 and 2019, affecting approximately 15 percent of US goods imports. The second Trump administration tariffs threaten all United States goods imports excluding a few categories, mainly USMCA trade (valued at $405 billion of imports in 2024) and certain energy-related and other imports under the April 2 tariffs (valued at $644 billion of imports in 2024, or $459 billion excluding Canada and Mexico).
Sidestepping how incompetent it is to be changing tariff policy daily, yes I would say America imports “hundreds of thousands” of products containing steel/aluminum
Altogether, Trump’s imposed tariffs would raise $2.3 trillion in revenue over the next decade on a conventional basis ($1.5 trillion on a dynamic basis) and reduce US GDP by 0.9 percent, all before foreign retaliation. However, if the IEEPA tariffs are permanently enjoined, it would reduce the total revenue raised by Trump’s tariffs on a conventional basis by $1.8 trillion to $574 billion over 10 years and reduce the negative GDP effect to 0.2 percent.
which is probably where Bloomberg pulled .15% from, and again this doesn’t factor in the foreign retaliation to this idiocy,
As of April 4, China, Canada, and the European Union have announced or imposed retaliatory tariffs altogether affecting $330 billion of US exports. Imposed and threatened retaliation as of April 10 will reduce US GDP by another 0.2 percent and 10-year revenue by $132 billion on a dynamic basis.
but also
The US Court of International Trade ruled in May 2025 that the IEEPA tariffs are illegal, but they have been allowed to continue while the case is in appeal.
so a linchpin of this economic ‘plan’ will be tossed if/when the appeal is up
Trump’s imposed and scheduled tariffs will increase federal tax revenues by $172.1 billion, or 0.57 percent of GDP, making the tariffs the largest tax hike since 1993. The tariffs are larger than the tax increases enacted under President Barack Obama and President George H.W. Bush.
so with all imports being taxed a minimum 10% (from direct consumer to those foreign raw materials those Nucor and Cleveland-Cliffs plants need) I don’t see who would defend this money-losing system, unless you’re really excited for the federal government to have a larger operating budget for some reason, or you own a Nucor/Cleveland-Cliffs plant where you can push increased costs onto the consumer and ride the stock price up alongside it.
Let the Murricans fight it out and fix the mess they started. They shouldn’t have nice things if they think fascism and fucking up the planet are the way to go.
And yes, I also mean those that didn’t actively support Trump but aren’t fighting back.
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A lot of the Murricans feel the same way about Europe fighting their own battles too.
In a way yes, but how is China getting much stronger a problem of Europe only?
(Also, the strategy of “We want to be an unambiguous military hegemony, because that earns us influence that can be converted into big time economic boons. Therefore, we’d ask you, Europe, to refrain from having powerful militaries. That way, you can invest that money in the good of your own people. You won’t get the economy we will get, but you will be doing better than without this deal.” has been good for Europe, but better for USA. Now that it ends, it’s likely that eventually EU will be a bigger military might than USA, which then translates to all kinds of interesting economic consequences for USA. I’d guess they’ll for example have to pay off their debt once they no longer are a hegemony. Dum-dee-dum. I haven’t ever liked this strategy very much, because it leaves us vulnerable, and I haven’t felt sure that USA really wants to help if shit hits the fan. As it apparently doesn’t, which means that the deal is off.)
Yes, America cannot have it both ways but neither can Europe. Many of the things (e.g. healthcare) that the US is laughed at by Europeans is partially because the US spends so much on things like military that Europe doesn’t because they have been relying on the US.
The US benefits (well, the rich in the US) by being the reserve currency. Europe benefits by having stronger social programs.
It seems (and I do not like it) the US is currently looking to focus more on themselves. They work too much, have horrible social programs, massive economic divides and see so much being spent on programs benefiting other countries. They want more for themselves.
That’s a direction things seem to be going but it’s likely to slow or reverse based on their election cycles.
Social media such as here are generally echo chambers for a more globalist view and a hate America baseline. It can make us believe that it’s a majority belief. I have my doubts. I also have zero Ill will towards those that feel that way.
If you think “America First” is about putting your average American first and increasing social programs you are in for a rude awakening.
You don’t have to be into globalist views to hate America. The conservatives have no problem hating their own country and tearing it down.
Many of the things (e.g. healthcare) that the US is laughed at by Europeans is partially because the US spends so much on things like military that Europe doesn’t because they have been relying on the US.
Nah. USA uses more money per capita for healthcare than most European countries do. It’s not that USA doesn’t have money for healthcare. They just have elected to spend it in a different way than European countries have. Since they can pay their current more expensive system, they could also switch to the European system that costs less money.
I don’t hate America. I just think USA is a country where people want to have politics that are not efficient and that it’s a country not fulfilling the basic reasons for why a country should exist in the first place. It’s a country where the individual is subservient to the system, and I don’t really like that idea. But that doesn’t mean I hate America. I just would not want to live the American way. And, although I am here in this echo chamber (which it is, indeed!), my colleagues and basically any person I meet here in Finland share’s my views on America, including USA.
Most governments suck in my opinion. I left the US a decade ago and spend a majority of my time in international waters and/or very easy going jurisdictions. I want nothing to do with governments.
Arguing about which government is better is like who’s shit tastes better.
Sanctions? On my country?
Wonder if this will effect visas.
Credit cards are mailed within the United States.
/s
nice. seriously though I just got mine and it took weeks to go from new york to me. Since they are kinda packages I hope its not effected for anyone who found a need to renew for some reason in the last year.
Expected and actually surprised it happened
I got a notification from bpost saying it’s suspended because they don’t know how much the cost will be, so they don’t know how much to charge.
So the reason is not that they would need to pay more and don’t want to, but that nobody knows who to pay, what to pay, and how to pay. There is literally no way to send a package to the US today and know how much it will cost.
So this is not Trump being aggressive in negotiation, but just being incompetent.
He is actually extremely competent, if the goal is to destroy US’ status as a superpower.
That would explain why he had to check in with his FSB handler in Alaska last week.
Oh my God trump thinks he’s trading Alaska for Greenland. It just clicked.
But he forgot that Greenland has two cannons and 3 horses on it already.
Trump wants IOSS, just implemented in a week, somehow by someone else than America themselves, and made immediately mandatory.
And I want a Pilatus PC-12 for free with no maintenance costs, but life is more complicated than that.
TBM 960
He thrives off making everybody on edge with uncertainty, that’s why he won’t tell us WHEN he intends to invade Chicago and other big cities
Nonsense. People don’t want to pay. We had US customers refuse duties.
What really happened, the minimis has been removed, now everything has duties attached while before it was things over 800 dollars. No business is just going to “eat that cost”. It’s all being passed down. Express couriers will make it paid up front so most won’t notice it there… But cheap services? Customer has to pay it themselves. It’s all lack of understanding.
While the cheap service might be 10 dollars, you got to pay 50 dollars in duties in a weeks time. Vs say the 75 dollars express with duties baked in.
But US folk are kept in the dark about it. So they simply don’t understand how it works.
How would a foreign country collect this in behalf of the US? No system has been setup for this by the US.
EU, UK and others have systems in place to make this possible. The US hasn’t.
Unless UPS/DHL have been just pocketing our money, this money is being passed somewhere…
Its not part of my job HOW it’s paid, but it is figuring out HOW MUCH is being paid. And I can tell you, it is happening for these two couriers. Feel free to share your professional experience, if you have any.
Then probably there is a system in place between UPS/DHL and the US customs. But there is none available for the national postal organizations. I don’t think UPS is going to just open its computer systems for all possible countries to use.
(Also, DHL? Isn’t that the postal service of Germany? Germany’s postal service is listed as “Germany” in the above list. Are you sure DHL hasn’t suspended those shipments as well? If it hasn’t, then Germany shouldn’t be on the list!)
It’s still possible to ship DHL Express from Germany
The headline wouldn’t be as good if that were included though. 🤷🏻
That’s because DHL Express is DHL, and it’s possible to ship by DHL.
You’re talking about companies with offices in the US. I’m talking about foreign countries. E.g. Postnl (company without offices in the US).
This is not true. Ship with DHL, FedEx, or UPS.
…and pay a random amount of customs fees. Can be done, but can get quite crazy. It’s better to let the few big guys handle those shipments for now than 30 different organizations trying to set things straight with the US customs.
If what’s being evaluated is what’s best for the US, buy an alternative product from a US company or from a country that has figured out how to ship.
I don’t think those countries have figured out how to ship. They just ship and hope for the best. The package might be returned or it might get stuck, a way to pay might appear, some-something. They can also end up in trouble and getting fines for having delivered shipments to USA soil without paying customs duties beforehand. No way to know in advance what will happen.
Sending through them might work. And it might be that it sometimes does, sometimes doesn’t. Again, it’s a game of lottery.
From the article:
Full list of countries suspending U.S. parcel shipments
- Australia
- Austria
- Belgium
- China
- Czechia
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- India
- Italy
- Japan
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Norway
- Russia
- Singapore
- South Korea
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Taiwan
- Thailand
- United Kingdom
Lithuania as eell, I think you are right but with an exception documents under 500g are allowed.
Portugal as well
As someone in logistics software… it ain’t pretty
Even if we KNEW all the details, no way do we have enough manpower and system capacity to clear the additional dozens of thousands of shipments that would switch from automatic 86/03 to needing additional clearance details (but we’re prepping for it! Only time will tell)
Buckle up America, this week gon be a bumpy ride, and give a lil leeway to the people getting your Temu packages to you, it ain’t their choice this is all happening. You know who to blame.
The White House needs to host a tariff API with all the current rates for all the countries for all the things.
I mean… LOL but it would be the sane way to carry out their insane clown show.
DHL, UPS, FedEx are still shipping from what I’ve read.
Yes, but many of those companies refuse to ship to rural addresses. It isn’t worth their time to drive an hour outside the city for a single package. That’s part of what makes the USPS such a vital service; Without the USPS, many rural people wouldn’t have any postal service at all.
Hell, to ship a small package to my grandparents via UPS or FedEx would be upwards of $90, and that’s only because they’re barely inside of the redline/cutoff where the companies will outright refuse to ship. Shipping that same package via USPS? $6.80.
DHL, UPS, and FedEx partners with USPS for “last mile” deliveries. Those three shippers do the DDP and USPS can do the last mile.
It’s the now age old Trump-Tariff faux-paradox …
Country A has a package to ship to the US …
The US tells Country A: 'aha tariffs need to be paid"…
Country A says “okay, tell the recipient to pay the tariffs and give us the ok when they did so we can deliver it past your border”.
The US gets angry: “no no someone else pays tariffs not us! How dare you put the tariffs on us! Others are supposed to pay!”
Country A mumbles “ok, be that way”, returns the package to sender, sender might refund but keeps shipping costs… and the US customer loses out twice.
Trump is why America can’t have nice things
Good.
The root cause is a profound anti-intellectual bent.
Fascist bents, I’d say.
Knowing the definition of “fascist” is too intellectual for 90% of America.
Europe has much more past and current expirence with fascism than Americans so it’s understandable
The US has been a fascist nation for a long time.
I’m all for anarchy but then those with the bigger guns win and the US government has the bigger guns. 😂
Maybe the nordic countries come the closest but I’ll wait to see how electronic privacy (chat control) unfolds
Americans are why Americans can’t have nice things.
his obssesion with tariffs is one of his identities.
Tariffs and underage girls
Ya know, I just had a $100 part shipped to me from the US to French Polynesia through a broker I paid. Package is delivered by DHL and customs sits on it for 10 days. Then they charge me a “tax” equal to 100% and they included the shipping price I paid in the calculation.
If it’s okay for other countries to charge this BS, the US should be able to as well.
Oh, and don’t even think about over staying your visa in FP!
Things have gotten so bad that we’re having to find tiny island clusters in the South Pacific to compare the US to in order to make their import logistics seem reasonable.
I don’t even disagree that there’s plenty of other countries that make importing a pain, but the free market was supposed to be the US’s whole thing. Like, the US can’t even America properly any more.
Its not just tiny countries. This is common most places. Travel and import things and report back.
A one-way free market isn’t good for the US.
Travel and import things and report back
If you’re going to be condescending, at least check your facts first. De minimis import exceptions are extremely common, especially in developed countries (including the whole EU, Japan, Australia, NZ to name a few): https://zonos.com/docs/guides/de-minimis-values
EU de minimis does not apply to US imports. Japan is about $70, Australian non resident businesses over $75k of sales need to register and pay GST (10%) regardless of the de minimis, for NZ, the threshold is about $30k and the GST is 15%
Facts.
Yes, all of which mean that you can send stuff of low value in the regular postal system to those countries.
You seem to be arguing the whole thing from a trade deficit position or a Trumpist “waaaah, it’s not fair how we’re importing so much stuff”, when that’s not what the story is about at all. Several other posters have already explained this to you.
My argument is to remove your self imposed limit of “regular postal system” and this is a non issue. You as a business absolutely can send packages to US customers. The costs have gone up but you can still ship.
You seem to be arguing from a point of orange man is bad and trade should be free (except for US businesses).
All countries should remove all barriers to trade!
I never voted for Trump and have never in my life voted Republican. I do have a history as a business owner dealing with unfair trade practices from other countries though.
it’s okay for other countries to charge this BS, the US should be able to as well.
That’s because other countries have the systems in place to handle the additional charges, but the US suddenly demands money for a package but doesn’t have the systems in place to handle anything for this. No paperwork, no procedures, no amounts list, no account number. At this point all other countries are just waiting for the US to gets it shit sorted out so they can actually pay.
DHL, FedEx, UPS. They are still shipping
There the recipient apparently pays, but the formal recipient is a company in US. In other countries, it works so that when you’re getting a package, you are asked to pay the tariffs, and once that’s done, they receive the package.
But USA now refuses this (except if it’s DHL, FedEx or UPS, which is a funny ruling), so instead, the country sending the shipment must collect the money and relay it to USA. But, USA refuses to tell them how much money they should be collecting, and it refuses to tell them where to send the money to. Big guys at DHL, FedEx and UPS probably know some specific people in the White House who have made this work out for them, but not all postal companies on this planet know people in the White House.
This is BS, FedEx, DHL, and UPS collect duties for other countries just like they do for the US tariffs
Absolutely they do. But not all countries have systems in place for collecting the money in the sending country. I’ve had to pay customs duties for thing’s I’ve received in Finland, so clearly they were not paid in the sending country.
But it’s also irrelevant that they they collect duties. Others would like to do the same, there just is no way to do it, for now. Later there probably will be, and then the deliveries will be continued.
And will you continue to do that for the next item? No. And if you can’t find a local supplier, you’ll stop doing that business. It hurts the economy. And this is what will happen in the U.S.
Seems unlikely it will hurt much.
Also, what I did the next time was purchase a RT ticket to LA from Tahiti purchased the part and returned with it. This was less expensive than paying the import duties and when I declared it at customs, they said I owed nothing.
Nazi Germany gassed people in death camps. Therefore everyone should do the same thing.
(Please tell me how this logic is any different than yours?)
My dude, this is technically correct but a bad metaphor; there’s a lot of important differences between death camps and postal bans that make the comparison absurd.
What a dumb comparison. So many haters of anything US here. Yet, more people want to live here than anywhere else. 😂
Try illegally moving to any other country, try importing duty free anywhere else.
There is a limit under which the shipment is duty-free. Been there, done that. The declartion takes some 10-ish minutes of time. And there’s a system in place for that.
But, here the problem is that USA refuses to accept the money from any other organizations than UPS, FedEx and DHL, which apparently have some kind of back channel they can use. If I import something from China to Finland, I get a message telling me I’ll need to pay up. It then asks for the value of the shipment and the type of the goods and spits out the sum I must pay. Once I’ve paid up, the shipment will continue.
But the US demand is that exclusively the sender pays the money. And the US has no system in place for receiving such payments, so there is no way of paying them. For now.
Again, DHL, FedEx, and UPS all can accept the payment. Just like they do for taxes and duties in other countries.
As already said numerous times in this conversation.
And also, them being able to accept the payment does nothing to help the companies why aren’t, because they are not allowed to use the systems that tell how much they should pay, nor is there anything to receive those payments in the US end.
DHL, FedEx and UPS have some kind of bilateral agreements – official or unofficial, hard to say. Good for them.
Moar!!!
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I think you just got scammed
