As part of new tariffs on Chinese imports, President Donald Trump eliminated an exemption for small packages, vastly increasing the amount of parcels US Customs and Border Protection needs to inspect.
The USPS was never intended to turn a profit. It’s not a business. Its entire purpose is to deliver mail to every American, regardless of where they’re located. Making that profitable was never realistic nor necessary for a government service.
The UN Postal Union sets guidelines for international mail that dictates developing countries shouldn’t have to pay full price to send mail to developed countries. Basically if it costs $30 to ship something from a developing country, they would charge $20 and the destination country would pay for the shortfall (dollar values not real). China was a much smaller economy when this agreement was drafted.
The US renegotiated this agreement with the United postal union in 2019/2020 but there were still come compromises made - while the amount of subsidization is minimal compared to 10 years ago, USPS still allegedly eats some losses on every package from China.
Basically Trump is mad because the deal he personally negotiated 5 years ago wasn’t good enough. Same thing that happened with his trade agreement with Canada
Yeah, and the person who ordered the thing from China is getting their shipping cost subsidized by the American taxpayer, while someone who orders something domestically has to pay for 100% of their own shipping. It literally is a subsidy for China
You should try scrolling up and looking at what the context of the discussion is. Someone asked what was being subsidized, I answered, you swooped in with a bunch of self righteous off-topic remarks.
for fucks sake this entire conversation is bullshit. the whining about pittance of tax dollars spent on packages from china is entirely designed to make you stop paying attention to the absolutely obscene mountains of tax moneys going directly to american billionaires in the form of tax cuts, bailouts, and yes–fucking subsidies
honestly gtfo with this bitching about the USPS
Just because it’s a service doesn’t make the comment you are replying to any less correct. Cancelling inbound chinese shipments is negatively affecting quality of service, NOT revenue
Just because it’s a service doesn’t mean it has to operate at a loss. Water is a service too, but you can’t bankrupt the water company by using 300x as much water.
Whether it’s public or private has no real bearing on my point though. Water consumption is priced to cover the cost of delivering the water. That isn’t the case in international shipping, the more packages from China for the USPS, the more money they lose.
the entire premise of your “point” is mind-bogglingly wrong. the USPS doesn’t make money, it costs money, just like any other org run by the government
how much revenue is the US military raking in? or are they “operating at a loss” too?
talking about ending the USPS because it’s “losing money” is the most bone-headed bullshit take on anything, ever. period
Indeed. The biggest con of the cons was getting everyone talking about government as if it should model itself after business (with the implicit, built-in assumption that business is an unqualified good, no less, so it’s two-fer).
Business are run as private tyrannies. Government should definitely not be operated like a business.
Chinese packages are a net negative for the post office, you can probably find articles about that from Trump’s first term.
I don’t know why you got down voted because it’s 100% true. NPR did a fairly good episode on it: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/episode-857-the-postal-illuminati
Good thing the USPS is a public service and not a business, and the fact that it’s not expected to turn a profit is actually a feature and not a bug.
Interesting.
It looks like that’s been changed since the NPR broadcast.
https://redstagfulfillment.com/universal-postal-union-treaty/
People don’t like when something Trump does could have good reasons. It does seem accidental in this case, but it doesn’t make it not true.
How about you wake up and stop painting shit in gold?
Trump doing some good (which I don’t even think is the case here) is purely incidental to serving his own self interests.
Everything they do is a “net negative”! My company’s IT and HR departments don’t generate any revenue at all…
And cost centers constantly struggle with funding.
The USPS was never intended to turn a profit. It’s not a business. Its entire purpose is to deliver mail to every American, regardless of where they’re located. Making that profitable was never realistic nor necessary for a government service.
It doesn’t have to profit, but it also doesn’t have to subsidize incoming packages from China.
How are they subsidizing them?
The UN Postal Union sets guidelines for international mail that dictates developing countries shouldn’t have to pay full price to send mail to developed countries. Basically if it costs $30 to ship something from a developing country, they would charge $20 and the destination country would pay for the shortfall (dollar values not real). China was a much smaller economy when this agreement was drafted.
The US renegotiated this agreement with the United postal union in 2019/2020 but there were still come compromises made - while the amount of subsidization is minimal compared to 10 years ago, USPS still allegedly eats some losses on every package from China.
Basically Trump is mad because the deal he personally negotiated 5 years ago wasn’t good enough. Same thing that happened with his trade agreement with Canada
You’re ignoring the fact that the person who ordered the thing is in America, and are acting like this is a subsidy for China.
Not everything is zero-sum.
Yeah, and the person who ordered the thing from China is getting their shipping cost subsidized by the American taxpayer, while someone who orders something domestically has to pay for 100% of their own shipping. It literally is a subsidy for China
Congratulations, you cracked the code on how public services work.
You should try scrolling up and looking at what the context of the discussion is. Someone asked what was being subsidized, I answered, you swooped in with a bunch of self righteous off-topic remarks.
for fucks sake this entire conversation is bullshit. the whining about pittance of tax dollars spent on packages from china is entirely designed to make you stop paying attention to the absolutely obscene mountains of tax moneys going directly to american billionaires in the form of tax cuts, bailouts, and yes–fucking subsidies
honestly gtfo with this bitching about the USPS
The Postal Service is a service.
We should not be allowing cheap crap that serves no purpose to be a drain on tax dollars lmfao
Just because it’s a service doesn’t make the comment you are replying to any less correct. Cancelling inbound chinese shipments is negatively affecting quality of service, NOT revenue
Just because it’s a service doesn’t mean it has to operate at a loss. Water is a service too, but you can’t bankrupt the water company by using 300x as much water.
Services can still cost money. Utilities, such as water, cost money but if the government is running them they do not need to produce profit.
Republicans framing the postal service as a failed business venture is purposeful.
Here’s a crazy take, maybe water shouldn’t be privately owned.
Whether it’s public or private has no real bearing on my point though. Water consumption is priced to cover the cost of delivering the water. That isn’t the case in international shipping, the more packages from China for the USPS, the more money they lose.
the entire premise of your “point” is mind-bogglingly wrong. the USPS doesn’t make money, it costs money, just like any other org run by the government
how much revenue is the US military raking in? or are they “operating at a loss” too?
talking about ending the USPS because it’s “losing money” is the most bone-headed bullshit take on anything, ever. period
Indeed. The biggest con of the cons was getting everyone talking about government as if it should model itself after business (with the implicit, built-in assumption that business is an unqualified good, no less, so it’s two-fer).
Business are run as private tyrannies. Government should definitely not be operated like a business.
Since the Postal Reorganization Act came into effect in 1971, the USPS has been mandated to be self-financing and rely solely on revenue from stamps and package deliveries to support itself. In 1982, postal stamps were changed to be categorized as products rather than a form of taxation, and since then, the Postal Service has no longer received taxpayer funding.