Postal traffic into the United States plunged by more than 80% after the Trump administration ended a tariff exemption for low-cost imports, the United Nations postal agency said Saturday.
The Universal Postal Union says it has started rolling out new measures that can help postal operators around the world calculate and collect duties, or taxes, after the U.S. eliminated the so-called “de minimis exemption” for lower-value parcels.
Eighty-eight postal operators have told the UPU that they have suspended some or all postal services to the United States until a solution is implemented with regard to U.S.-bound parcels valued at $800 or less, which had been the cutoff for imported goods to escape customs charges.
“The global network saw postal traffic to the U.S. come to a near-halt after the implementation of the new rules on Aug. 29, 2025, which for the first time placed the burden of customs duty collection and remittance on transportation carriers or U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency-approved qualified parties,” the UPU said in a statement.
The UPU said information exchanged between postal operators through its electronic network showed traffic from its 192 member countries — nearly all the world countries — had fallen 81% on Aug. 29, compared to a week earlier.
Cool. It doesn’t mean we start giving a shit about profit margins. It’s a public service. Sometimes it’s gonna cost us money.
The Epackets problem isn’t about profit margins, it’s about one country saddling part of the shipping cost on another. They also come in these awful plastic bags called “china sacks” and they are made from like a multitude of different shredded plastics so they can’t be recycled. They get like literally tons and tons of these bags each month and China won’t take them back.
Why isn’t it on the consumers themselves to stop buying the products?