The White House announced on 17th local time that it would formally launch its exit from the UPU process. If a new agreement is not reached with the alliance in the coming year, the US will withdraw.
Why does America ' retreat ' again? What will be the impact on the market?
According to White House officials, the United States is now starting to retreat because the ' terminal fees ' policy in the Universal Postal Union is unfair to the United States.
Why does America feel unfair? In the International postal Service, there is a thing called terminal fee (terminal dues).
What is a terminal fee? You live in country A, your friend Xiao Zhi lives in country B. Xiao Zhi's birthday, you want to send him a gift.
It takes two steps to get this gift from your hand to your little one:
1, you go to a country post to pay the postage, by postal mail to send things to country B.
2, B Postal put things to small volunteers hand. B Country Post certainly will not serve you for free, this relates to the so-called terminal fee.
In other words, you pay the postal service A, and a state postal service to the B-State postal payment terminal fee.
So, how is this terminal fee set?
This is the origin of the Universal Postal Union (Universal Postal Union). The Universal Postal Union (Universal Postal Union--upu), referred to as ' UPU ' or ' Postal Union ', is an intergovernmental international organization that has agreed international postal services, formerly known as the ' General Postal Union ', established on October 9, 1874, and renamed in 1878. Headquartered in Bern, the capital of Switzerland.
Its purpose is to organize and improve international postal operations, to develop international cooperation in the area of postal services, and to provide postal technical assistance, as required by Member States, within the limits of its capabilities.
The UPU has 192 member States, every 4 years the General Assembly, agreed terminal fees, one country one vote, the vote is completed within 18 months after the implementation. Since terminal fees are formulated in general democratic principles, rather than elitist principles.
Therefore, the establishment of this terminal fee does not reflect the economic situation of various countries, but the response to general will.
The developed countries, in the principle of supporting the international exchange of developing countries, have also long agreed to keep terminal fees at lower levels.
Trump argues that low terminal fees allow some foreign companies to send express deliveries to American consumers at very low courier rates, allowing large numbers of foreign goods to pour into the US at lower prices, making them more competitive than local sellers in the US. Earlier, the Trump administration has stated that it wants the US to adopt a ' self-declared rate ' system, that is, to allow the U.S. Postal Service to set its own prices for international parcel shipments of all sizes.
Before the US retired, the postal service allowed the United States to use self-declared prices only in parcels weighing more than 4.4 pounds. In August this year, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to request the USPS to cancel the international postal discount.
And Trump wants to try to renegotiate international postal charges through the Universal Postal Union, hoping to stop foreign goods pouring into the United States at a low cost.
What is the impact of the retreat?
Market analysts believe that if the negotiations do not smooth the United States eventually ' retreat ', then in the e-commerce, which will increase the U.S. people on the Amazon and other e-commerce platform to buy overseas goods transport costs, this part of the cross-border e-commerce transactions may fall, pressure on many exporters in other countries. At the same time, for international parcel delivery, especially small parcels, will face the price of postage, and the relevant express and postal companies in the international small parcel of business or will be affected.