No, the purpose was to make it affordable for poor people to send letters and packages to richer countries, with the assumption that traffic both ways would be roughly equal. The UPU and its tariff agreements way predate online shopping and the concept that it would ever be feasible for somebody in the US to order items from a shop in China with a few clicks of a button.

> I guess the purpose was to subsidize China and other countries in order to help them develop economically,

or you can say the purpose of the subsidy was to make goods cheaper for American consumers?

Except they aren’t, because subsidies are paid by someone (the government) who are themselves getting that money (I know there are other mechanisms) from your tax dollars.

Oh, so your taxes will be lower now?

In the long run, anything that reduces wasteful government expenditure will tend to reduce tax burden.

Probably true, given that governemnt expenditure is the best measure of the level of real taxation.

Though I'm not sure the funds will not just be redirected elsewhere, and how wasteful this is, given that it helps give access to more affordable and efficient direct shopping from producers, and puts pressure on the government to lower spending because of the tax breaks that are given to people buying directly from China.

Or, perhaps, be replaced with less wasteful government expenditure.