• US announces intent to withdraw from international postal rate system
    25 replies, posted
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/411828-us-announces-intent-to-withdraw-from-international-postal-rate-system It's mildly confusing that they're upset with the UPU, when it's the USPS that made a special agreement with China and Hong Kong to provide lower terminal charges (ePacket shipping): As U.S. Postage Rates Continue To Rise, The USPS Gives The Chine.. In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service made special agreements with the national postal carriers of China and Hong Kong (and subsequently South Korea and Singapore) to allow tracking-enabled packages not exceeding 36” or weighing over 4.4 pounds to be sent to the U.S. for extremely low rates. They called this shipping option the ePacket, and the rates are so low that it's cheaper to ship small parcels from China to an American city than it is to send that same parcel domestically.
Oh fucking boy I can't wait for rates on parts for my model cars to SKYROCKET as shipping becomes ludicrous.
Goddamnit who the fuck does this benefit
shipping in the US is already 10x as much as anywhere else this is mental
nice baja tho
What's even the point? Are we just withdrawing from all these international agencies and agreements because they don't let the US skullfuck the rest of the world in some way?
GEOTUS Trump is saving us from (((the Globalists)))
So let me get this straight . . . . . they're upset at an agreement that allows American recipients to obtain discounted shipping rates? It straight up benefits American customers, how is this awful in the slightest? All it's going to cause is people to buy less, not buy alternatively.
Destroying the economy is advantageous to Republicans because people who vote for them are retards and they can just blame it on Democrats and their voter base will eat it up.
To my knowledge, the epacket system has been pretty bad in that it causes the USPS to have to operate at a loss. Hong Kong and China have abused the system to be able to effectively offer free shipping on most goods to the US, which is great for the US consumer, but gives them a competitive advantage over everyone else who may compete with them. For instance, I paid 6$ shipping to get something from a company whose warehouse is 45 min away, whereas I can get free shipping on the same type of item (in this case, 3D printer filament) from China, and cheaper prices. This is not a good move, but the UPU has allowed for this to happen because they are supposed to level the playing field for shipping around the globe to enable developing countries to sell to developed nations without freight being cost prohibitive. China has been classed as the equivalent to a 3rd world nation in regards to shipping and freight, which is why they get discounts on shipping a la epacket. However, China isn't like Niger or Guatamala and can afford to pay these shipping costs. I believe this is a bad move, because the UPU isn't a bad system or idea, it just isn't perfect all of the time. Working to fix problems with it would go a longer way than scrapping international agreements just because it isn't working perfectly. Though, I will say that it will likely become much more expensive to buy cheap stuff off of AliExpress or BangGood as a result of this decision.
This is what I personally found after spending some time digging, though I'm too much of a lazy fuck to register with the UPU so I can't actually access their documents to check what the current categorization involves. It should be noted that the cost of the terminal charges don't matter for Chinese sellers, because the government pays them on their behalf. Yes, China's government will pay a lot more if rates go up, but the sellers themselves won't notice it.
gee thanks
The base idea is actually not wrong. China and other places are heavily abusing an old system. The Postal Service is losing millions a year to help you buy che.. An article from 2014 that explains how that works. According to the terms set out in Universal Postal Union treaty, the USPS in 2014 gets paid no more than about $1.50 for delivering a one-pound package from a foreign carrier, which makes it hard to cover costs. [1] The USPS inspector general’s office estimated that the USPS lost $79 million in fiscal year 2013 delivering this foreign treaty mail. (The Postal Service itself declined to provide specific figures.) Now here the the bad thing about the news, with the current government there is practically a 0% chance that they will actually make a better deal or fix the old one. Trump and his people are pretty incompetent in that regard and is just fueled by "winning" the trade war with china. Thus this might end up only hurting US citizens and small business owners as shipping from and to the USA will rise in response to this or worse deals. If a friend is right a direct consequence would be that instead of flatrates by weight you would also pay more based on which "zone" you ship to due to varying deals. It should very much increase in any shipping cost of imports, at least for things under 4.4lbs. So probably no more free shipping on aliexpress.
Eh, it probably won't be that big a deal, though if I break the 6ch heli I got off Banggood or my CA-10 needs factory parts(The wheels, tires are boss, bodywork I can't exactly use aftermarket replacements on) it might be a pain.
The base idea of withdrawing from international agencies because of a beef with a single country is a very drastic action though. Sweden dealt with this by taxing all post from China and charging additional fees.
Actually, all post outside of eu, i regularly buy stuff from the UK, and since they'll be leaving the eu, it'll be crazy expensive so i probably won't buy from the uk anymore
Wow I had no idea. Sweden ain't playing B)
there is no point just his insistance that amazon is abusing the postal system.
I already switched to struggling with Amazon.de instead of .co.uk if I want something that you'd typical buy from Amazon instead of local (Finnish) sites or eBay/Aliexpress, simply because I don't want shit to suddenly change from under me.
Amazon has been rolling out their own delivery service lately I've noticed. I had an amazon branded truck drop off something I ordered recently and I've never seen one of those before.
in unrelated news, President Trump recently forwarded plans to seize and destroy all copies of New Order's 2002 album International, end official DOTA 2 esports tournament The International, and strafe an International House of Pancakes with hellfire missiles
You mean IHO🅱? (yes, I know they supposedly faked it as a marketing stunt)
I can't but feel like this is an attempt to mess with Bezos and Amazon.
it benefits US customers at the cost of american tax dollars and at the cost of american competitors - it costs more to ship a small package from china to somewhere in the US than it does to ship a small package domestically
Bezos will have no problems with it seeing as every major company in the U.S finds that all you would have to do to prevent losses is shift the costs to the consumers. Can't get shipping paid for anymore by other means? No big deal, we'll just have the customer pay for the whole thing! I would think this is intended to go after the ordinary consumer more than the other large businesses seeing what the rest of the policies this current government's been implementing.
Is that why I'm delivering so many of those tiny goddamn packets coming from China? Those things are annoying as fuck since because they're so fucking small compared to the other flats we stack them with.
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