
U.N. postal union clinches deal to keep U.S. in - ineedasername
http://reuters.com/article/us-un-postal/u-n-postal-union-clinches-deal-to-keep-u-s-in-club-idUSKBN1WA247
======
lettergram
Good. It was insane that we were subsidizing shipping from China. This, more
than anything, will shift to a more balanced manufacturing model.

It was more expensive to ship within the US and Canada than from China. Pretty
much crushed the small retailers (I know I refused to spend $7 shipping for a
$12 item). Now that that’s improved the rates should more normalize, because
they won’t have to subsidize the loss on China shipping.

~~~
ikeboy
I often hear the claim that it's more expensive to ship within the US than
from China but rarely see it backed up. I've yet to see anyone give a specific
size box, weight, and locations for comparison, and the few times they have I
find the US shipping rate is cheaper.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Here's an example off eBay for an item that measures 6"x4"x2", is fragile so
has to be packaged well, and costs $2 _with free shipping_.

[https://www.ebay.com/itm/Acrylic-Transparent-Photo-
Frame-6in...](https://www.ebay.com/itm/Acrylic-Transparent-Photo-Frame-6in-L-
Shape-Photo-Picture-Frame-Home-Decor-DIY-S-/283304776438)

~~~
ikeboy
"This item does not ship to United States"

~~~
dhosek
Perhaps a victim of Trump's trade war?

------
freefal
Nice to see this getting addressed.

There's a great Planet Money episode explaining the brokenness of the existing
system
([https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/episode-857-the-
postal-illuminati)). NPR ends up substantiating the claim of an entrepreneur
who says that it costs him more to send a package across the street than it
costs someone in China to send a package to that same address.

~~~
ikeboy
No they don't. They repeat a false claim uncritically.

If you look up the cheapest US shipping rates you'll find they're roughly the
same range, and that almost all the comparisons purporting to show otherwise
are cheating, typically by using retail pricing on a more expensive shipping
option.

>So he turns to his shipping guy. And he asks, how much would it cost for us
just to ship this mug, like, not across the ocean, just across the street?

>SMALDONE: He told me it's going to cost us about $6.30 to ship this item.

Amazon page for mighty mug says it's 12.6 oz shipping weight.
[https://www.amazon.com/Might-Mug-1525-Mighty-
Black/dp/B00FZD...](https://www.amazon.com/Might-Mug-1525-Mighty-
Black/dp/B00FZDJHGK)

Round up to 13 oz, then look up rates for the cheapest shipping option for
packages under a pound "parcel select lightweight". See
[https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm#_c139](https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm#_c139)

The cheapest rate is $2.02 for 13 oz. This rate applies when mail is injected
at the closest mailing point (DDU), which "mailing across the street"
corresponds to.

~~~
mips_avatar
Ok so you're right, you could drive to your local postal office and if you are
commercially shipping stuff you can do destination delivery unit (DDU) and get
a 13 oz mug to your next door neighbor for $2.02. So let's assume the fair
cost of last mile delivery for a 13 oz mug is $2.02. The Chinese knockoff mug
cost on ebay $5.69 including shipping from China. So if the Chinese seller was
paying fair last-mile delivery (which they weren't), they would be
manufacturing and shipping a 13 oz mug to a local postal office in America for
$3.67.

~~~
ska
FWIW you could ship a 40ft container of mugs (something like 20,000 of them
individually packaged) from china to Seattle, say for a rough cost of about
10c per mug.

Bulk freight of nonperishable things is _cheap_.

~~~
mips_avatar
But if you listen to the story, these were individually shipped by the postal
service, from an ebay seller in china.

~~~
ska
Right - but what I was pointing out is making that particular scenario more
expensive doesn’t shift the overall incentives that much of the COGS are
significantly different.

------
mikepurvis
If anyone else is interested in some of the history of how we got here,
Wikipedia has a pretty decent summary:

"The 1874 treaty provided for the originating country to keep all of the
postage revenue, without compensating the destination country for delivery.
The idea was that each letter would generate a reply, so the postal flows
would be in balance. However, other classes of mail had imbalanced flows. In
1906, the Italian postal service was delivering 325,000 periodicals mailed
from other countries to Italy, while Italian publishers were mailing no
periodicals to other countries. [...]

In 1969, the UPU introduced a system of terminal dues. When two countries had
imbalanced mail flows, the country that sent more mail would have to pay a fee
to the country that received more mail. The amount was based on the difference
in the weight of mail sent and received."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union#Termina...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union#Terminal_dues)

------
kevindong
A few years ago, as a joke, I bought the absolute cheapest phone case off of
Aliexpress for a friend for $0.46 with free shipping. 1.5 months later, I did
actually get it in the mail. It went from China, through several of the
central Asian countries (the ones whose names end with "stan"), and was
delivered to my mailbox. All for less than the cost of a first class postage
stamp at the time ($0.47).

It blows my mind that Aliexpress was willing to take my money and act as an
intermediary between me and the retailer/factory as I cannot imagine they made
a profit on this transaction given the fixed cost of accepting credit card
payments (i.e. the "$0.30" part of 2.9% + "$0.30"). It further blows my mind
that a retailer/factory can profitably send me the case at all, even if they
were to receive the entire $0.46.

------
Animats
UPU terminal dues were up for renegotiation in 2018-2021 anyway.[1] That's
done every 10 years. The end result of all the noise from the US seems to be
the same thing as would have happened anyway - a rate change in 2021.

The UPU classifies countries by level of development, and there's a price
break for underdeveloped countries.[2] China is currently in group 3, along
with Chile and Lebanon, and was probably going to move up to group 2 in the
2021 round anyway.

So all this was mostly hype.

[1] [http://www.upu.int/en/activities/terminal-dues-and-
transit-c...](http://www.upu.int/en/activities/terminal-dues-and-transit-
charges/2018-2021-cycle.html)

[2] [https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-
library...](https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-
files/2015/ms-wp-14-002_0.pdf)

~~~
s17n
If I'm understanding the article correctly, the USPS can now unilaterally set
its own rates, which is a pretty substantial change from the existing system
where rates were determined by the decennial negotiations you're talking
about.

------
socalnate1
This is one of those instances where playing chicken seems to have worked out
(for the US).

Good news on this issue; although I'd feel more comfortable if there were
fewer geopolitical games of chicken going on; it just takes one crash to wipe
away the wins.

~~~
the_duke
This was definitely a case of the US strong-arming the rest of the world, but
in this case I think it was justified.

I hope European countries follow suit and stop subsidizing foreign mail.

It's absurd that we can order something on AliExpress, have it shipped halfway
around the world, and pay 1 Dollar.

~~~
_delirium
European countries mostly discourage this not through postal rates, but by
applying VAT and customs charges even on small-scale individual importation.
How uniformly this is done varies by country (some inspect and enforce more
aggressively than others). In Denmark, for example, which is one of the more
aggressive, you either need to have your package pre-cleared by arranging
duties/VAT to be paid ahead of time, or the Danish post office will charge you
a flat 160 DKK (about $23) for clearing it [1]. That makes it not cost-
effective to order $20 items from China, even if the UPU rates are low.

[1] [https://www.postnord.dk/modtag/spoergsmaal-og-
svar](https://www.postnord.dk/modtag/spoergsmaal-og-svar)

~~~
jfk13
In the UK, consignments valued at £15 or less are free from Customs Duty and
import VAT, so that doesn't do much to discourage small-scale individual
purchases from China.

~~~
AnssiH
That exemption will be terminated EU-wide on Jan 1st 2021.

It will also get terminated immediately in UK if they leave without a deal, at
least according to current UK government VAT guidance.

------
gumby
Not pointed out is that this works in the opposite direction as well, and it
doesn't look like _that_ part was fixed.

For example Australia post operates a service when you can buy US goods, have
them shipped to a US address, and then have the parcels shipped in aggregate
to Australia for arbitrage on shipping and licensing costs:
[https://shopmate.auspost.com.au](https://shopmate.auspost.com.au)

------
ijpoijpoihpiuoh
Worth noting that despite us not leaving the union, Trump is apparently
getting what he wants. The union basically capitulated to his demands. At
least that is my reading.

To be clear, I'm not saying one way or another whether this is a good thing.
It's just, I felt the title somewhat implied that the USG had given up on its
intentions. Whereas actually what happened was the opposite. I meant only to
point this out for others who might be likewise confused.

~~~
Scoundreller
Trump’e arguments weren’t wrong: it didn’t make sense for China to keep its
below-average and below-cost fees for sending packages to the US.

I just wish he could get the USPS to stop seeing outbound international mail
as a profit centre.

Plenty of Americans could be exporting a lot more internationally, but the
USPS has chosen high prices and low volumes.

As a Canadian that sometimes talks Americans into selling to me on Ebay, they
find it a painful and costly experience compared to US sales.

~~~
TMWNN
>Trump’e arguments weren’t wrong

Just say "Trump was right". You will not be condemned by _bien-pensants_ as a
thought-criminal. At least, not immediately.

>I just wish he could get the USPS to stop seeing outbound international mail
as a profit centre.

In other words, you'd like to pay less when buying from the US.

(There's nothing wrong with such a wish, but let's be clear about what you
mean.)

>Plenty of Americans could be exporting a lot more internationally, but the
USPS has chosen high prices and low volumes.

I know of no evidence that the USPS charges more to ship internationally than
Canada Post, notorious among Canadians for high prices. On the contrary, it's
sometimes cheaper for Canadians to ship to elsewhere in Canada by mailing from
the US. (Discussion:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/6rcn0v/canada_post_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/6rcn0v/canada_post_is_so_expensive_that_it_is_cheaper/)
)

>As a Canadian that sometimes talks Americans into selling to me on Ebay, they
find it a painful and costly experience compared to US sales.

That's because it is, compared to mailing domestically. It'd be surprising
otherwise, for any country.

I've sold on eBay and Amazon for years and have shipped often to Canada and
elsewhere; the procedure isn't that much more cumbersome. The vast, vast, vast
majority of sales are within the US, however.

It's quite possible for an American seller (whether on eBay or Amazon or with
their own online sites) to make money solely from the US market. Canada is one
ninth of the US and a smaller portion of potential sales for American sellers.
A Canadian seller, on the other hand, knows that the American market is nine
times larger than the domestic one, so has much more incentive to a) learn how
to handle international orders, and b) be willing to pay the higher postage
rates.

~~~
Scoundreller
> In other words, you'd like to pay less when buying from the US.

Naw, I want USians to have better chances of getting my money. When I buy
niche things that are available from the US and Asia, Asia keeps winning out.
I'm willing to pay more for faster shipping, but I have my limits.

> I've sold on eBay and Amazon for years and have shipped often to Canada and
> elsewhere; the procedure isn't that much more cumbersome. The vast, vast,
> vast majority of sales are within the US, however.

Doesn't explain why most others don't bother. Is it still too cumbersome? Or
is it just cultural where the rest-of-world is thought of as a scary and
dangerous place?

> It's quite possible for an American seller (whether on eBay or Amazon or
> with their own online sites) to make money solely from the US market. Canada
> is one ninth of the US and a smaller portion of potential sales for American
> sellers. A Canadian seller, on the other hand, knows that the American
> market is nine times larger than the domestic one, so has much more
> incentive to a) learn how to handle international orders, and b) be willing
> to pay the higher postage rates.

> It's quite possible for an American seller (whether on eBay or Amazon or
> with their own online sites) to make money solely from the US market. Canada
> is one ninth of the US and a smaller portion of potential sales for American
> sellers.

Dunno why a business would throw away an extra 11% in sales, or being able to
sell their same inventory for higher prices. Depends on your product.
Obviously a lot of Canadians _really_ benefit from FBA because postal prices
are high enough to discourage a lot of non-FBA online ordering.

> A Canadian seller, on the other hand, knows that the American market is nine
> times larger than the domestic one

My own experience was that selling to the world made me more money than just
N. America, largely selling video games, DVDs and other small electronics.

Although I comment from the perspective of a Canadian, there's a whole world
out there that USians could profitably benefit from selling to, IMO.

~~~
TMWNN
> USians

Ah yes, you're one of those who think that not calling the only country in the
world with the word "America" in its name, "America", somehow strikes a mighty
blow against American imperialism. You'll pardon me if I am skeptical of your
claim of primarily wanting to help American businesses, as opposed to wanting
to pay less (which, as I said, there is nothing wrong with wanting, in and of
itself).

>Doesn't explain why most others don't bother. Is it still too cumbersome? Or
is it just cultural where the rest-of-world is thought of as a scary and
dangerous place?

Yes, indeed, one of those.

>Dunno why a business would throw away an extra 11% in sales

First, it's not "11% of sales"; the actual share is less because of natural
friction, just as you didn't have nine times as many sales to Americans as
Canadians.

Second, unless the item is very small, international shipping by USPS requires
a larger-than-usual mailing label, in triplicate, and a special plastic pouch
to put the extra forms in on the box's surface. Then there are the risks of
complaints by customers who have to pay duty, and the much greater difficulty
of accepting returns from international customers. I was willing to ship
internationally despite these factors, but I cannot criticize others who
decided that the additional revenue isn't worth the trouble.

>My own experience was that selling to the world made me more money than just
N. America, largely selling video games, DVDs and other small electronics.

That's a given. But, again, as a Canadian you would have left _much, much,
much_ more on the table by only selling to the domestic market than your
American counterparts. I assure you that if American sellers could quintuple
sales by selling to Canadians, they would do so even if the mailing process
were three times as complicated. But they wouldn't, so they don't.

>My own experience was that selling to the world made me more money than just
N. America, largely selling video games, DVDs and other small electronics.

Spare us the false veneer of kindly advice. You can't stand how the country
next door to yours constantly has for sale items you want to buy at attractive
prices but can't, at least not directly, despite sharing the same language and
culture. Instead of trying to change things in your country to make it easier
for such things to be sold there, you demand that the neighboring country seek
to earn less money when transporting the items to you. Congratulations.

~~~
Scoundreller
wat

------
TheSoftwareGuy
>Under the phased agreement, high-volume importers of mail and packages would
be allowed to begin imposing “self-declared rates” for distributing foreign
mail from January 2021.

Does anybody have any idea what this means? Who is considered a "high-volume
importer" and how do they set "self-declared rates"?

~~~
markstos
I translated that the United States imports more mail then it exports.

Backbone internet companies trade traffic with each other, but the trades
aren't always equal so it makes sense for there to be money flowing more in
one direction.

The US is saying that the current relationship has costs that exceed the
benefits, so the US is going to be declaring their own interpretation of a
"fair market rate" to import mail from other countries that aren't receiving
the same volume of US mail in return.

------
theflyinghorse
Does this mean the field is leveled against Chinese shippers?

~~~
oh_sigh
Maybe. Maybe China will start subsidizing their mail instead of having the US
do it.

~~~
Danieru
China would need to use their foreign reserve to do this subsidy. Ignoring
belt and road all of China's internal industry subsidies use Yaun. Belt and
Road use dollars but are "lent" thus in theory China is not reducing its
foreign reserve.

Problem for China as we see in their capital controls is maintaining wealth in
Yaun. Any subsidy which requires using foreign dollars, as paying the US
postal tarrif would, weakens the states stability.

------
m0zg
>> agreed to reform its fee structure

And for decades before this moment it never occurred to any of the demagogues
in chief to look into such mundane matters as trade imbalance, or subsidizing
everybody in the world at the expense of our own businesses and manufacturing
base, hollowing out large chunks of the country to make a quick buck.

This shows the downsides of electing lawyers who never did anything of
material consequence in the real world, and don't understand or care how the
business side of things works.

------
iagovar
So, would this apply to Europe too? I mean, it's insane that it cost me more
to send a package to France than Import it from China.

~~~
avocado4
It applies to everyone starting 2021, and to large volume shippers starting
July 2020.

------
Leary
The decision was reached unanimously by all 190 some countries. It's good to
see countries working together to reach a compromise.

------
AimForTheBushes
Glad to see China backed the compromise. Definitely the best outcome.

~~~
kelnos
I noticed this and found it interesting. I wonder what the motivation is here.
Is the amount China stands to lose from this so low that it wasn't a hill they
cared to die on? Will they use this in trade negotiations with Trump as a sign
that they're being reasonable?

~~~
ehvatum
Trump successfully telegraphed US intention to leave the IPU and impose
punishing costs on delivery of Chinese parcels in the US, making acceptance of
an equitable compromise the only palatable alternative for the Chinese.

Incidentally, every Chinese person I know absolutely adores Donald Trump
_because_ he plays hard ball, whereas they didn't quite know what to think
about Obama, who was totally inscrutable from the Chinese perspective. Trump
lays out what he wants, and then he fights for it, and he usually gets it. As
far as I can tell, people who grew up in China view that as the natural,
normal, and proper way of conducting affairs.

~~~
peteretep
> Chinese person I know absolutely adores Donald Trump because he plays hard
> ball, whereas they didn't quite know what to think about Obama, who was
> totally inscrutable from the Chinese perspective

I have read countless well-written articles arguing exactly the opposite, so I
find this interesting.

~~~
ehvatum
There is certainly no shortage of impeccably composed essays dumping on Trump
and developing a galaxy of identity-political rationales for why various
people ought to dislike him. The story on the ground is distinctly at odds
with the impression I get from American media and the BBC. I'm sure they feel
they are advocating for a good cause in a situation so dire that all other
concerns are overridden.

------
megous
More useful info here [http://news.upu.int/no_cache/nd/frequently-asked-
questions-t...](http://news.upu.int/no_cache/nd/frequently-asked-questions-
third-extraordinary-congress/)

------
caf
I wonder whether, in practice, sellers will apply the higher rates only to US
destinations - or whether they'll just spread it across all their customers,
so that the situation changes to non-US customers subsidising the US ones?

------
duxup
What are "self declared rates" and how does this exactly change things?

I get the idea that international incoming shipments were subsidized but it's
not clear what self declared rates really .. does?

~~~
kelnos
I believe that the old rates were set by the UPU, and, in the case of China,
were artificially low due to China's status as a developing nation. That
status (conferred upon them 50+ years ago) has not been a reflection of
reality for a long time. The new deal allows recipient countries to declare
their own rates. The US will, almost certainly, declare a rate much higher
than the current rate, such that the USPS will no longer be subsidizing
shipments from China.

~~~
duxup
OH, got it, the receiving nations declare it.

It almost sounded like the sending were and of course they'd be all "oh yeah
this is like a penny...".

------
racino84
Anyone have a list of countries that do over 75,000 tonnes of imported mail a
year?

------
Overtonwindow
Excellent! China has been abusing this system far too long.

------
ummwhat
This is weird because the postal union was the one wonky, deep in the weeds
policy where even the globalist agreed with the populist that something needed
to be done. Way I see it there were 3 options.

1\. Use international institutions like the WTO and UN to affect a change or
enact a legal, narrow set of tarifs on bad actors without putting the wider,
generally beneficial system at risk.

2\. Start subsidizing our own postal service. China does it because it's an
economic multiplier that benefits a wide segment of society. Why not copy it.

3\. Burn the postal union treaty to the ground.

Trump picked 3 and has now pivoted to 1. I personally would have picked 2 but
I don't think any of these options are crazy. 3 sucked but wasn't outrageous
IMO.

~~~
aivisol
Subsidizing own postal service would mean paying it with tax dollars. Why
would those who never use this service should pay for those who use it more?
Besides that (and its my own observation only) I have noticed that subsidies
usually distort market and make service/product less sustainable and
competitive.

~~~
ummwhat
Same reason I'm ok with the government building a road even though I don't
personally drive. It's an economic multiplier. It increases opportunity
overall by facilitating more transactions than were previously possible, and
the net economic growth can flow back to me even though I didn't directly use
it.

I'm not universally in favor of subsidies, just in certain specific instances
where the economic multiplier is high and a large fraction of the public
benefits directly (usually infrastructure).

~~~
Spivak
Which is why I'm so surprised that people dislike farm subsidies so much since
every single person in the US benefits from cheap corn being available.

------
mcv
Good. This might actually be the one good thing that Trump has accomplished.

Or that would have been my reaction until I read the article:

 _" Countries with more than 75,000 tonnes in post imported annually - mainly
the United States - may apply their self-declared new rates from July 2020,
UPU officials said."_

So does 'mainly the US' mean 'only the US'? I don't want an exception just for
the US because they are too powerful to ignore, I want the same rule to hold
for every EU country. Replacing a rule where rich countries subsidize long
distance mail from (former) poor countries with a rule where only small rich
countries have to pay for that subsidy is really not an improvement.

~~~
TMWNN
Trump is president of the United States, not of the EU. It is the EU and its
member states' onus to obtain similar changes, should they believe them
desirable.

That you begin with a snarky remark about Trump, and then go on to say that he
is at fault for not helping Belgium or Austria win the kind of changes that
the US needed to seriously threaten to leave the UPU for, says more about you
than about the US or Trump.

~~~
mcv
I'm not sure how you think the UPU works, but Trump does not set UPU rules on
his own. 200 countries are involved in those negotiations. If the UPU rules
are inconsistent, that's not just on Trump, but on the UPU and the many
parties negotiating in it, including the EU.

So I have no idea why you choose to read my complaint about the UPU
negotiations as a complaint about Trump. I even started out by saying he is
right in this one case. But this is an issue that's not unique to the US, but
to all wealthy countries, and therefore should be handled evenly for all
countries. That's what I pointed out in my comment. You're a bit too eager to
read attacks where there are none.

Had the UPU made just a single exception for the US because of the US's power,
that would have been inconsistent and a mistake by the UPU. But as others have
explained elsewhere, that's not what happened. The rule is for everybody, it
just starts 6 months early for the US, which I guess is a minor gesture to
appease Trump. I'm fine with that. Starting in 2021, the situation will be
fixed for everybody.

~~~
TMWNN
I love your rushing to pretend that you didn't write what you wrote:

>Good. This might actually be the one good thing that Trump has accomplished.

>Or that would have been my reaction until I read the article:

>"Countries with more than 75,000 tonnes in post imported annually - mainly
the United States - may apply their self-declared new rates from July 2020,
UPU officials said."

>So does 'mainly the US' mean 'only the US'? I don't want an exception just
for the US because they are too powerful to ignore, I want the same rule to
hold for every EU country. Replacing a rule where rich countries subsidize
long distance mail from (former) poor countries with a rule where only small
rich countries have to pay for that subsidy is really not an improvement.

In other words:

* Requisite snarky remark about Trump

* Complaint that the rule change is only for the US (written before you read the rest of the thread and realize that this refers to the US getting the rule change slightly earlier than other countries, as we can see by ...)

* Stating that "this is not an improvement" because other rich countries won't benefit from the rule change, again because you hadn't yet read the read of the thread. (Even were you correct, this would be an improvement _for the US_ , which is Trump's concern. As I said, he is not the president of the EU.)

~~~
mcv
I'm not pretending I didn't write what I wrote. I did write what I wrote. I
didn't write what you _claim_ I wrote:

> _" then go on to say that he is at fault for not helping Belgium or
> Austria"_

That is not something I wrote. I never said Trump is at fault for these
results. That is something you're trying to put in my mouth, and I'm telling
you not to do that, because it's a dishonest way of arguing.

If you're looking for bad things to blame on Trump, there's tons of that
around. This is one of those very rare things where he actually did the right
thing. And had the UPU only made this an exception for the US, and not changed
the rules for everybody, that would have been on the UPU as a whole and
presumably the EU members who failed to negotiate this properly. Fortunately
that's not what happened; it was a misunderstanding on my part (based on a
cursory reading of the article, so I was already hoping it was the article or
my reading of it that was wrong).

~~~
TMWNN
>I never said Trump is at fault for these results.

No, but you blamed Trump for not getting the results for other countries. Let
me repeat again what you wrote:

>Replacing a rule where rich countries subsidize long distance mail from
(former) poor countries with a rule where only small rich countries have to
pay for that subsidy is really not an improvement.

That you wrote the above without understanding the full ramifications of the
change is immaterial, because you

* Take a swipe at Trump ("This might actually be the one good thing that Trump has accomplished")

* Then say, based on your misunderstanding, that this "is really not an improvement".

The implication is clear: Trump is at fault for not obtaining the same
improvement he gained for the US for other, "small rich countries" as well. I
reiterate my original reply to you:

>Trump is president of the United States, not of the EU. It is the EU and its
member states' onus to obtain similar changes, should they believe them
desirable.

>That you begin with a snarky remark about Trump, and then go on to say that
he is at fault for not helping Belgium or Austria win the kind of changes that
the US needed to seriously threaten to leave the UPU for, says more about you
than about the US or Trump.

~~~
mcv
> _" No, but you blamed Trump for not getting the results for other
> countries."_

As you can see from your own quote out of my comment, that is simply not the
case:

> _" >Replacing a rule where rich countries subsidize long distance mail from
> (former) poor countries with a rule where only small rich countries have to
> pay for that subsidy is really not an improvement."_

Nowhere do I mention Trump. I'm not blaming this on Trump.

> _" Take a swipe at Trump ("This might actually be the one good thing that
> Trump has accomplished")"_

Well, it is. There's not a lot of good he's accomplished in other areas, has
he? He's mostly a disaster. This is the one truly good thing I can see that he
has accomplished.

> _" Then say, based on your misunderstanding, that this "is really not an
> improvement"."_

And indeed it wouldn't have been an improvement if it had only created an
exception for the US. I'm glad that's not the result of these negotiations. I
will absolutely credit Trump for this one good thing he has accomplished.

But if it hadn't been this good result, and it had only resulted in an
exception for the US, he would not have accomplished this one good result.
Surely that's clear, right? You can't claim credit for something that didn't
happen (though I'm aware that Trump sees that differently).

However, had the result been not as good, that doesn't mean that Trump is
automatically to blame. I understand the assumption, but he's not doing these
negotiations on his own. It would be the whole of the UPU, and particularly
the EU negotiators, that would have failed to replace the previous rule with a
better universal rule, opting for an exception instead. That exception would
probably have been good enough for Trump, so he'd still have gotten what he
wanted, but this is an issue that's bigger than just the US, and I'm glad the
UPU recognised that. I'm also glad Trump addressed this issue. Credit where
it's due.

------
colechristensen
>The U.N. agency coordinating postal systems worldwide on Wednesday reached a
compromise to reform its fee structure, proposed by the United States,

------
spsrich2
what a relief. of all the postal unions the USA could be in the global one is
the best

------
droithomme
This is reasonably good news.

However I was kind of looking forward to the insanity that would follow from
leaving this long term and fairly sensible pact! Change isn't always bad,
sometimes change leads to new solutions.

I personally enjoy the ability to buy NEW parts for my 1914 sewing machine and
have them sent directly from some mom and pop family stall in a Chinese
village for $0.15 with free shipping.

But I also see the importance of encouraging American manufacturing, even
though I also realize the long tail products I love so dearly and greatly
appreciate the life support China's extended to them is valuable.

I also benefit from the ability to manufacture prototype PCB boards in China
for new products just by sending off a webform request and for around 1/50 the
cost stateside. Losing that ability might be damaging to domestic productivity
since we really can't meet those prices, which makes doing frequent bugfix
revs, or a small production product, untenable. For those with access to those
highly superior Chinese facilities at low cost and quick turnaround, they
might have the long term advantage. On the other hand why can't we locally
have very modern robotic pick and place machines that don't cost hardly
anything and have Joe Bob's fabrication of Arkansas pivot from custom tractor
parts to producing clean room spec proto boards. These shops in China doing
this stuff a lot are in rural areas and are small outfits run by a few people.
We can do the same and would be more interesting for a lot of americans than
meth and opioid despair. And yes we can do it.

Who knows though. What happens in the global economy and balance of tech is a
delicate balancing game and difficult to predict long term outcomes past next
year.

I do think our present administration is quite good at this game of take it or
leave it hardball. The present outcome is a reasonable compromise. And is the
new solution we may or may not have gotten from actually leaving.

~~~
h2odragon
"Joe Bob's fabrication of Arakansaw" has some licensing requirements his
foreign competition might not. And some materials handling friction that's
probably less costly elsewhere. His employees have overhead and administration
costs which are again, higher than many other places.

~~~
droithomme
Two possibilities:

1\. Maybe maybe not.

2\. I guess we should just give up then. Manufacturing will never return to
America! It's hopeless.

Choose your own adventure.

------
paggle
This is where Trump’s “give no quarter” tactics has really yielded fruit. I
wish we could find a more normal and balanced guy who was still willing to
throw around the weight and leverage of the US.

~~~
m0zg
More "normal" and "balanced" guy would be eaten alive by the establishment and
mainstream press, and would achieve nothing at all.

~~~
paggle
Not at all, Reagan was a guy who managed to proudly use the strength of the US
without being a moral degenerate.

~~~
m0zg
Reagan too was called a total clown during his first election campaign and in
his first term (he's in a good company, so was Lincoln). He was a much better
public speaker, I'll give you that, but Trump is almost certainly a better
negotiator, just from experience alone. I took some classes on negotiation,
and did a bit of that myself, and I routinely see people misinterpret bog
standard negotiation plays he does as his "missteps". Literally any book or
course on negotiation will walk you through all of the techniques I've seen so
far. It's getting tiresome. That's _the standard way_ of doing this shit,
literally everyone who has successfully run any kind of business will see
these tactics for what they are immediately.

As to "degenerate", that's the label you use when you've lost the rational
argument. All I see is a talented businessman with a bit of Aspergers, strong
Twitter game, and a profound lack of public speaking skills. None of that
disqualifies him from the job he was elected to do.

[http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/05/ronald-reagan-was-
onc...](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/05/ronald-reagan-was-once-donald-
trump.html?gtm=bottom)

~~~
paggle
No that’s not what I mean by degenerate. I mean someone who says Mexicans are
sending their rapists, their daughter is a “piece of ass,” that they like
soldiers who weren’t captured, that pays off porn stars to cover their
affairs, that tells foreign leaders to investigate their political opponents,
etc. There are plenty of people who can get tough on immigration, China, and
NATO without being a degenerate... perhaps a four star general. Yes, one can
make the argument that a degenerate can be an effective President, and there
is precedent for this (e.g. LBJ, Clinton) but I think that welcoming
degenerates to the office is a bad long term idea.

~~~
m0zg
Litmus test time: does this look like degenerate behavior to you? This is a
presidential frontrunner and (at the time) an acting VP. He got his cokehead
son $1.5B in Chinese money, too, for his "investment" firm, how that continues
to escape the front page of WaPo and NYT is beyond me.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--
dj2-CY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY)

Or are your morals selective enough to remain blind to this? Because it seems
that the mainstream press is trying their hardest to not cover the story, and
if it wasn't for Trump's "whistleblowing" (which I believe he orchestrated
himself), nobody would know.

~~~
paggle
On the Washington-calibrated President degeneracy scale, bounded by George
Washington at 0 and Donald Trump at 10, I’d give this a 5, Bill Clinton a 7,
and Lyndon Johnson a 9.

------
tehjoker
The reason rates are so cheap from China is because the system was
intentionally designed to make it profitable to produce goods in China where
labor is cheap. These kinds of attacks on the system are pretty interesting as
they undermine the system the business community has loved since the 1990s.
It's kind of amazing that Trump is actually attacking the system in order to
feed his xenophobic platform. On the other hand, it's possible the business
elite are suspicious of China's rising economic power and want to reduce
dependence. In no scenario will ordinary people benefit so long as the elites
are allowed to execute their plans as all roads lead to their own enrichment
at our expense.

------
gpm
Alternative headline: "China gets deal to continue having America subsidize
it's shipping for another 7 months"...

I'm not impressed with the timeline associated with this deal.

I'm also not impressed by how the US seems to have only solved the problem for
the US. It seems like Canada and most of Europe are in a nearly identical
situation.

~~~
avocado4
7 months is very short when it comes to international agreements.

Also it applies to every country from 2021, i.e. Canada and EU will be able to
set their own rates as well.

~~~
gpm
7 months is only fast when you ignore the 12 months leading up to this.

> Also it applies to every country from 2021, i.e. Canada and EU will be able
> to set their own rates as well.

Oh, I must have misread the article, that's good to hear.

~~~
kelnos
19 months is still a pretty reasonable timeframe for modifying a huge
international treaty that around 200 countries are party to.

Regardless, I don't think it's fair to include the preceding 12 months; there
was nothing actionable for any country to do to prepare for the changes until
now. I would actually consider seven months to be impressively fast.

~~~
mcv
Yeah, I'm quite impressed by how fast and smoothly this happened. Considering
practically every country in the world is party to this, and it's going to
impact nearly all global mail traffic, I expected more talk and slower
implementation.

