Beginning on Wednesday, USPS announced in a statement that it would continue to accept “all international inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong Posts.”
According to the statement, “USPS and Customs and Border Protection are working closely together to implement an effective collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery.”
The “de minimis” exemption, which allows US customers to avoid paying tariffs on shipments under $800 from China, was eliminated by the Trump administration.
Trump’s order ending de minimis shipments from China, which came into effect shortly after midnight on Tuesday, did not immediately respond to USPS’s question regarding whether its temporary suspension had been related to that order.
“There has really been absolutely zero time for anyone to prepare for this”, Maureen Cori, co-founder at New York-based consultancy Supply Chain Compliance, told the Reuters news agency.
“The government needs to give us specific instructions on how to handle this without giving any notice,” the statement states.
Before taking office on January 20, Trump had threatened to impose high tariffs on his nation’s biggest trading partners for weeks.
Trump halted 25-percent tariffs against Canada and Mexico as they pledged to combat drug trafficking and irregular immigration at their respective US borders, despite imposing 10-percent tariffs on Chinese goods this week.
China reacted to Trump’s actions by announcing its own retaliatory measures, including 15% tariffs on US imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal.
On Tuesday, the Chinese Ministry of Finance announced 10-percent tariffs on imports of agricultural machinery, large-displacement vehicles, and pick-up trucks.
Source: Aljazeera
Leave a Reply