20 Time September 30, 2019
The clock is ticking: the September
meeting is the last real chance to strike
a deal. There, members will consider
several proposals. Option A offers few
changes. Option B lets countries decide
rates, up to the amount they charge
for domestic mail, starting in 2020.
Option C would allow them to move
toward setting rates but at set ceil-
ing increases until 2025. The propos-
als aren’t public, but documents seen
by TIME show the U.S. proposed an
amendment to Option C that would let
it self-declare in 2020 while leaving
other nations with a longer transition.
U.S. officials say other member
states appear to be listening, but its
patience is limited. “We are doing
every thing possible to make sure one
of two things happen: either we get a
vote at the [meeting] that gives us im-
mediate self-declared rates,” top White
House trade adviser Peter Navarro tells
TIME, “or we seamlessly exit the UPU.”
Those in the mail industry aren’t sure
about the seamless part. “It looks like
Trump is having his own Brexit,” says
David Jinks, head of consumer researchAs An AmericAn, JeAnne Glenz prizes her riGhT To voTe.
But, because she lives near Munich with her German husband,
exercising that right isn’t always easy.
This year it could get even harder, depending on the results
of an obscure international meeting scheduled to take place in
Geneva on Sept. 24–25. If the Trump Administration doesn’t get
what it wants at that summit, the U.S. is set to withdraw from an
arcane treaty that governs global mail delivery— leaving commer-
cial shippers and military mail managers fretting, and election of-
ficials concerned that millions of overseas Americans will struggle
to cast a vote. “This represents taxation without representation,”
says Glenz, a 79-year-old retired psychologist from California.
The White House says it’s working “around the clock” to
facilitate a smooth exit from the agreement, if it comes to that,
but the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has telegraphed a more cau-
tious outlook in industry conversations. With few details made
public, mail watchers worry the U.S. may be about to upset the
stability of the mail system around the world.
The currenT sysTem isn’t perfect—a letter may get lost; a gift
may arrive the day after a birthday—but it’s still an impressive
bit of international cooperation. After all, if you want to send a
letter from the U.S. to Glenz in Germany, you can use American
stamps and still expect Deutsche Post to deliver it.
That’s thanks to the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a
144-year-old organization that sets technical and security stan-
dards to keep international mail and small packages moving
around the globe. Now part of the U.N., it’s the second old-
est international organization in the world, and not typically
involved in high-profile disputes. But one part of the arrange-
ment has drawn President Donald Trump’s ire: “terminal dues,”
the rates the 192 member countries pay one another to deliver
mail across borders. The fees were developed in the 1960s
based on factors including a nation’s economic development at
that point, so countries like China are still heavily subsidized.
“What’s really made this a disastrous system is that in the
last 10 years or so, international document volume has plum-
meted and international e-commerce has boomed,” says James
Campbell, a lawyer and UPU expert. “The United States and the
Euro peans have been flooded with e-commerce goods that come
from China and other countries. We are delivering those goods
at terminal- dues rates that are substantially less than what the
Postal Service charges domestic mailers for the same service.”
This discounted shipping cost industrialized nations $2.1 bil-
lion in 2014, per a study cited by the USPS. Trump, who has
long complained about trade imbalances and NATO spending,
called this discrepancy “discriminatory” before announcing last
October that he intended to leave the UPU. Though his was not
a new complaint, the decision to quit the group outright was, like
many Trump Administration actions, a surprise. But the with-
drawal process takes a year, and the State Department says the
U.S. will stay put if allowed to set its own terminal-dues rates.
Will Trump pull out of
the world’s mail system?
By Abigail Abrams
TheBrief News
‘It looks like
Trump is
having his
own Brexit.
It could be
an absolute
free-for-all.’
DAVID JINKS,
head of consumer
research at
ParcelHero, on
the U.S. leaving
the UPU