Confusion and chaos are emerging for individuals and businesses who need to send parcels to the United States.<\/p>\n
Postal services globally, including Australia Post, have temporarily stopped sending many items there, as another Trump administration tariff deadline looms.<\/p>\n
So why can’t postal services deal with a new tax on imported goods, and what should we expect next?<\/p>\n
Here is what we know.<\/p>\n
What kinds of parcels will be blocked via Australia Post?<\/p>\n
Australia Post won’t send anything to the US for now, except for letters, documents and gifts worth less than $150.<\/p>\n
It’s the same deal for items going to Puerto Rico, which uses the same postal network as the States.<\/p>\n
This decision is mostly impacting online retailers in Australia who use Business Contract and MyPost Business to send items to the US.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Australia Post isn’t the only one that suspended shipments to the US.\u00a0 (Getty Images: Don Arnold)<\/p>\n
Australia Post isn’t the only postal service that has made this extraordinary decision.<\/p>\n
Norwegian, Swedish-Danish and Belgian postal groups Posten Bring, PostNord and bpost also paused their parcel shipments to the US last week.<\/p>\n
Sendle, which mainly focuses on small to medium-sized businesses and online retailers, followed suit.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sendle has informed its customers temporary pause on US shipments.\u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Taiwan’s national postal service, Chunghwa Post, was another to do the same more recently.<\/p>\n
Over in Italy, postal services are also impacted, with newspapers printing headlines say: “caos dazi”.<\/p>\n
Or if you’re fluent: “duties chaos”.<\/p>\n
So what’s tariffs got to do with Australia Post?<\/p>\n
Until now, parcels of goods worth less than $US800 ($1,230) were not taxed when they arrived in the US.<\/p>\n
This “de minimis” exemption led to a boom in online shopping by Americans, who took advantage of the duty-free status of cheaper products shipped in from overseas.<\/p>\n
China’s de minimis exemption already ended earlier this year, impacting massive online retailers like Shein and Temu<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump’s tariffs a ‘double-whammy’ for Temu and Shein<\/a><\/p>\n Donald Trump’s last trade war with China allowed Shein and Temu to become e-commerce giants during a cost-of-living crisis. But his latest tariffs will not hurt the companies as much as those who rely on them.<\/p>\n Now the rest of the world’s goods are losing this exemption too on August 29.<\/p>\n Guidelines out of Washington DC state parcels will now either be levied with the tariffs associated with their “country of origin”, or flat fees of more than $US80.<\/p>\n But postal carriers didn’t get much notice, with the decree only announced last month in July.<\/p>\n Australia Post says they haven’t had enough time to put in place systems to collect the associated taxes or fees by August 29.<\/p>\n And until they figure this out, shipping of goods that could be covered by the new fees or tariffs will be suspended.<\/p>\n “We are disappointed we have had to take this action,” Australia Post executive Gary Starr said in a statement.<\/p>\n “However, due to the complex and rapidly evolving situation, a temporary partial suspension has been necessary to allow us to develop and implement a workable solution for our customers.” Collecting duties can be challenging for Australia Post.\u00a0 (Getty Images: David Paul Morris\/Bloomberg)<\/p>\n So why is it so hard to collect these duties?<\/p>\n The issue appears to be that the duties now being applied to these online parcels needs to be collected before they land on American soil.<\/p>\n And that’s different to what’s happened in the past, says Kate Muth, the executive director of the Washington-based International Mailers Advisory Group (IMAG).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n