Global carriers halt US deliveries

International mail carriers in nearly 30 countries have temporarily stopped sending parcels with merchandise to the United States over confusion about the end of the "de minimis" exemption set for Friday.

The exemption had allowed low-cost goods to enter the country duty-free if valued under $800.

Over 22 postal services from Europe, including the UK, Germany and France, suspended services, some as early as last Friday. In Asia and the Pacific, carriers in Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, South Korea and Singapore stopped deliveries or halted them to the US. Most said they had not been given enough time to prepare for the changes to the rule and were seeking more clarity before resuming services.

In May, China was the first to have the exemption suspended on its shipments, but the rule will now extend to the global community as of Friday. It will mean US-based companies will have to pay higher import duties on goods received by mail. But gifts and letters under $100 may still be delivered free of tariffs.

The Universal Postal Union announced on Tuesday that 25 member countries have suspended postal shipments to the US, citing uncertainties linked to planned changes by the US administration.

As the United Nations specialized agency for the postal sector with 192 member countries, the UPU said in a statement that it is working with US authorities to ensure that details of the new operational requirements are clearly communicated to its members.

The statement also noted that the UPU Director-General Masahiko Metoki also conveyed the member states' concerns about potential disruptions in a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday.

DHL said in a statement: "Key questions remain unresolved, particularly regarding how and by whom customs duties will be collected in the future, what additional data will be required, and how the data transmission to the US Customs and Border Protection will be carried out."

The company, the largest shipping provider in Europe, told The Associated Press that it "will no longer be able to accept and transport parcels and postal items containing goods from business customers destined for the US".

Belgium's Bpost said its services would be halted until more information is gathered from the US government. Italy's postal service, Poste Italiane, issued a similar response.

Royal Mail, the British postal service, confirmed it had halted shipments to the US on Tuesday. From Friday, anything worth over $100, such as gifts to friends and family, will face a 10 percent duty.

PostNord, a Nordic firm, said its pause was "unfortunate but necessary to ensure full compliance of the newly implemented rules".

In the Netherlands, PostNL told the AP it was working closely with its US counterparts to find a solution.

France's national postal service, La Poste, said it too had not been given enough details by the US to prepare for the new customs procedures.

Austrian Post AG, Austria's logistics and postal service provider, said its last shipments to the US were made on Tuesday.

PostEurop, an association of 51 European public postal operators, said that all of its members would likely cease business operations to the US if no solution was found by Friday.

Russian Post, Russia's national postal operator, also noted that procedures for paying duties to the US Customs and Border Protection remain unclear, prompting all air carriers to halt deliveries of parcels containing commodities to the US.

In fiscal year 2024, $64.6 billion worth of goods in over 1.36 billion small shipments utilized de minimis, according to Yale University and US Customs and Border Protection.

The Trump administration blamed the exemption for enabling parcels to "evade tariffs and funnel deadly synthetic opioids … that harm American workers and businesses into the United States".

In an executive order from July, the government said that any country that sends a low-value shipment to the US through the postal system will face one of two tariffs: either an "ad valorem duty" equal to the effective tariff rate of the package's country of origin. Or, for six months, a specific tariff of $80 to $200, depending on the country of origin's tariff rate, Reuters reports.

Xinhua contributed to this story.