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International postal providers are dashing to halt parcel deliveries to the US forward of a Trump administration deadline to finish a tax exemption that had allowed companies to keep away from import tariffs on small packages.
President Donald Trump introduced in July that the US would develop its suspension of the “de minimis” exemption for parcels valued at lower than $800, which it had already utilized to China and Hong Kong, to the remainder of the world, starting on August 29.
State-owned postal providers and personal operators from Germany to Singapore stated they’d droop providers as a result of US authorities had but to supply ample info on how the duties can be collected.
In steerage issued on August 15, the US Customs and Border Safety stated that following the top of the exemption, parcel duties can be based mostly on the country-of-origin tariff price.
La Poste, France’s postal service, stated the steerage had left “European postal services with an extremely short timeframe to prepare — especially since these procedures still require numerous clarifications”.
Germany’s DHL, proprietor of Deutsche Submit, on Friday turned the most recent to droop providers, following bulletins from operators in Austria, Belgium, Slovenia and Scandinavian and Baltic international locations.
PostEurop, the business physique for European postal providers, stated: “This measure will significantly affect all postal companies worldwide and their customers sending shipments through postal networks to the United States Postal Service.”
The race to chop providers underlines how the Trump administration’s scrapping of the de minimis exemption threatens disruption far past a budget Chinese language imports it initially focused.
Lately, the exemption has proved a boon to ecommerce platforms that ship on to shoppers, reminiscent of China’s Shein and Temu.
The White Home stated that between 2015 and 2024, the quantity of de minimis shipments getting into the US elevated from 134mn to greater than 1.36bn.
In an indication of the disruption in Asia, South Korea’s postal service warned it might cease accepting packages, whereas Singapore’s nationwide operator stated its providers can be suspended between August 25 and 29.
Australia Submit stated it had paused “transit” put up routed from different international locations by to the US, including that it solely affected a “handful” of packages.
Extra reporting by Laura Pitel in Berlin, Richard Milne in Oslo, Giuliana Ricozzi in Rome, Christian Davies in Seoul, Nic Fildes in Sydney and Owen Walker in Singapore
