News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on The U.S. can now set its own rates for mail from China and other countries. Parent comment

Re:The U.S. can now set its own rates for mail from China an... by cameldrv on Sunday June 28, 2020 @11:49PM (#23674172)
It costs significantly less to send a lightweight package, via the USPS, from China to the U.S. than it does to send it within the U.S.

There's no reason American taxpayers and postal rate payers should be subsidizing shipping costs for Chinese Ebay/Amazon merchants at the expense of their American competitors.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The U.S. can now set its own rates for mail from China an... by lazylizard on Monday June 29, 2020 @12:12AM (#23674260)
American taxpayers are ok with subsidizing themselves buying cheap stuff from aliexpress pinduoduo and taobao maybe?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The U.S. can now set its own rates for mail from China an... by cameldrv on Monday June 29, 2020 @12:26AM (#23674328)
No they're not. The reason it's so cheap is that the UPU forced the U.S. to offer these rates. As a result, the U.S. threatened to leave the UPU so that the USPS could adjust the rates to be more equitable.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The U.S. can now set its own rates for mail from China an... by mcv on Monday June 29, 2020 @06:41AM (#23676236)
Once upon a time, the US agreed to these rates, because at the time they were reasonable. The idea was that developing countries would be held back if they had to pay the full cost of international mail. To help them, the relatively low volume of mail from developing countries would be subsidised a bit by the country it was mailed to.

But China isn't a developing country anymore; it's the #2 economy of the world. And the volume isn't small either. The rule should not apply to them, but it's hard to change.

[ Parent | on HN ]