The latest attack on international institutions by the Trump administration distinguishes itself by being quite obscure: It’s about postage. It also may have more of a basis than most of the administration’s complaints about trade.
The administration is concerned about the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a specialized agency of the UN. The UPU was established by the Berne Treaty of 1874 and became a UN agency in 1948. The administration has taken issue with the “terminal dues” rates issued by the UPU, under which, the administration argues, the United States has been subsidizing the shipping costs of foreign suppliers in certain countries, including China, when they send goods to the United States. The basic story is as follows (some good background is here).
When companies or individuals ship goods abroad, they use their domestic postal service to send the item. When that item arrives in the foreign country, the postal service of the shipping country makes a payment to the postal service of the destination country in the form of “terminal dues.” These “terminal dues” are set by the UPU and are designed to cover the destination country’s portion of the transportation costs – basically an agreed upon reimbursement rate to transport the item to the recipient.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/trump-administration-trade-move
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