"Return to sender: Postal union warns of fallout if US leaves" Topic

(US Residents might want to look at whatever you need from overseas vendors over the next few months as this thing has the potential to cause disruption to the flow of products).

GENEVA (AP) — No international letters, no international packages: A top official with a 192-country postal union says that's what Americans can expect if the Trump administration goes through with plans to pull out of an international postal treaty over concerns about China.

Pascal Clivaz, deputy director-general of the Switzerland-based Universal Postal Union, says the agency reached out quickly to U.S. officials after receiving a letter from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week announcing Washington's plan to pull out of the union in a year if the treaty isn't renegotiated.

The U.S. says it's willing to renegotiate. But the threat is the latest sign of U.S. President Donald Trump's go-it-alone approach to many issues, from the environment to trade to the Iran nuclear deal.

"It will have dramatic consequences for American consumers. It will cost them enormously. They will be all alone against all the countries of the world," Clivaz told The Associated Press on Friday. "They won't even be able to send (a package) to a neighboring country. It's an accord that links everybody."

link

Oh no. It's the end of the world … again. :)

You mean I won't be able to get my stacks of cheap knock-off junk from Communist China postage free any longer, and I'll have to buy from actual IP companies?

Dan

Maybe we could get some jobs back to the US from overseas as well?

Cacique Caribe: if you read the article you might note that should be an impasse, nothing will be moving anywhere and that includes places well beyond China. So if you are ordering items from Europe, they likely will not be shipped.

45thdiv: More jobs would be nice, however that is not the point being made here.

Well if this happens then I guess I will just be ordering from Old Glory more often.

Kevin

So, The US Citizens wont get crap we want and the rest of the world will go broke with no one to sale to.

Not sure what you will be ordering from Old Glory Kevin C – the US is the largest consumer in the world of raw tin and it hasn't been mined in the US since 1993. Haven't had a primary smelter in the US since 1989.

Amusingly China is the biggest producer…

link

This article explains what's happening.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

I bet the tin will arrive via a ship and not via the post. Sure the tin will be "sold" to a different country by China who will then sell it to the US (probably all without leaving the same warehouse). We the consumers will pay more but I rather doubt the resources will go wanting.

From that article it would seem DHL and other non US based companies would still be able to compete.

Bunkermeister

That might explain much of this also:

TMP link

Dan

So, The US Citizens wont get crap we want and the rest of the world will go broke with no one to sell to.

Yes, strong-arming the hand that feeds you hasn't been working well lately.

We'll see who flinches.

Sure, Europeans will stop selling and exporting to the USA over this.

Right.

Want to buy my bridge in Brooklyn? It's priced at only triple the amount I paid for it.

Thresher01, If you might read the piece it says nothing about sales, but everything about the movement of product. The Europeans may wish to continue to sell, but without an agreement in place to move the products through the various postal services it will go nowhere.

Typical scaremongering.
Post got through before this treaty and will get through again.

Yep. I read it, twice. Another "the US brings about the end of the world" piece.

Sounds to me like the ones who would be refusing to move the mail over there are the problem. And the US is their excuse.

Dan

I have given up buying anything from continental Europe anyway. Their postal rates are so high it is cost prohibitive. Unless things have changed, they have no small packet rate like the US and Britain do.

Tom

Goragrad,

Maybe this will give some enterprising people the motivation they need to invest in starting up another industry (tin) that has long been dormant in the U.S. I'm willing to pay a little more on my toys to help my fellow Americans who have fallen trough the cracks become gainfully employed and to help us not be completely dependent on unreliable sources for supplying us with resources. It's nice not having to depend on the Middle East for supplying us with oil; wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to rely on China to supply us with tin. I don't mind importing key resources when you have choices, but it is dangerous to be totally dependent on unreliable suppliers for key resources.

Those articles explain a LOT! I've bought a number of 1/72 plastic fantasy figure sets from China, for less than I could get them from US distributors. Could not understand why… Until now. Thanks for sharing, everyone.

Trump brought Mexico, and Canada, to the negotiating table. I suspect China will come to the same table, with hat in hand. Without access to the US markets, they will suffer terrible economic setbacks: no one to buy their metric tonnes of cheap crap products. It will be hammered out. Cheers!

Kevin C – not to go into the political weeds, but when the cost of meeting regulations combines with the attitude of not in my back yard on the part of too much of the population there isn't much room for enterprising people to get motivated.

There is nothing on the horizon that suggests that aside from references to oil that anyone has any thought of the basic extraction industries as being of strategic importance regardless of the fact that manufacturing can't function without raw materials.

Goragrad,

"when the cost of meeting regulations combines with the attitude of not in my back yard on the part of too much of the population there isn't much room for enterprising people to get motivated."

I hope that you are wrong, but you make a good point.

Kevin

"The Europeans may wish to continue to sell, but without an agreement in place to move the products through the various postal services it will go nowhere".

Weak-kneed politicians and lifetime bureaucrats will cave so fast over this it will make hypersonic missiles look slow.