- Title: U.N. postal agency seeks to persuade US not to quit over Trump fee hike demand
- Date: 24th September 2019
- Summary: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (SEPTEMBER 24, 2019) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER AND HEAD OF THE U.S. DELEGATION, PETER NAVARRO, TALKING WITH MEMBERS OF THE U.S. DELEGATION AND OTHER COUNTRIES' REPRESENTATIVES BEFORE CONGRESS STARTS UNIVERSAL POSTAL UNION (UPU) GATHERED IN THIRD EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS UPU EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS SECRETARY GENERAL BISHAR A. HUSSEIN, UPU CONGRESS CHAIRMAN KENAN BOZGEYIK AND UPU CHAIRMAN ASSISTANT EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS ONGOING (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER AND HEAD OF THE U.S. DELEGATION, PETER NAVARRO, SAYING: "We are flooded in a world of e-commerce with small parcels -- we get over a million small parcels a day from around the world -- and in most cases, our post office has to subsidize that inflow, and at the same time it is competing with jobs in our country." EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS ONGOING VARIOUS OF NAVARRO DURING CONGRESS VARIOUS OF CHINA DELEGATION DURING CONGRESS (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER AND HEAD OF THE U.S. DELEGATION, PETER NAVARRO, SAYING: "The current system basically loses 300 million to half a billion dollars a year for our postal system, tens of thousands of jobs, and it helps facilitate particularly from China the import of counterfeit goods and dangerous drugs like fentanyl." EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS ONGOING (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER AND HEAD OF THE U.S. DELEGATION, PETER NAVARRO, SAYING: "There are many countries disadvantaged by this system, there's a few countries that benefit from it, but they can't be using America as their piggy bank anymore, and so we are leading the reform effort, we hope that we get to a result that keeps us in the union, but we will seamlessly leave if we don't." VARIOUS OF EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS ONGOING (SOUNDBITE) (English) UPU EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS SECRETARY GENERAL AND UPU DIRECTOR GENERAL, BISHAR A. HUSSEIN, SAYING: "If the United States leaves, you'll get those piles (of small parcels) you are talking about, for sure, because somehow every country has to figure out how to send mail to the United States, because the traditional system will completely shut down, according to our current rules, unless that is changed. So, it means then that all the customers that are sending and those who are expecting to receive will be disappointed globally, it is a disruption, a major disruption is under way if we don't solve the problem today." JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) UPU EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS SECRETARY GENERAL AND UPU DIRECTOR GENERAL, BISHAR A. HUSSEIN, SAYING: "The moment a country leaves the treaty, what happens is that that country does not exist for us in our global postal territory. So that means that nothing, really, we cannot exchange any mail, or packets or parcels with USPS, which is United States Postal Services, officially in a form and a ship we know it today. So that means their stamps will not be valid for us, they will not be able to exchange anything, they are not going to use our IMPC (International Mail Processing Center) codes and many, many other services which they can get directly." MEMBER STATES DELEGATES GOING TO THE EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS MEETING ROOM SCREEN DETAILING PROGRAMME AND ROOMS OF THE EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS GENEVA CONGRESS CENTER WHERE THE EXTRAORDINARY MEETING IS HAPPENING
- Embargoed: 8th October 2019 15:29
- Keywords: United States United Nations U.N. postal agency fee hike Peter Navarro Donald Trump
- Location: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
- City: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
- Country: Switzerland
- Topics: Government/Politics,United Nations
- Reuters ID: LVA001AY0Q893
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The U.N. body responsible for cooperation between countries' postal services held emergency talks on Tuesday (September 24) to persuade the United States not to quit over President Donald Trump's demand to hike the fees Washington charges to deliver foreign mail.
The Trump administration has told the Universal Postal Union based in the Swiss capital Bern that it will quit unless the agency agrees to let countries charge more to deliver mail they receive from abroad. Last October, Washington set a 12 month deadline.
The UPU sets international postal rates that include strict caps on "terminal dues", the charges postal services collect from each other to cover the cost of delivering international mail.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, who heads the U.S. delegation, told journalists in Geneva that the system had led to the United States Postal System paying what he described as annual "subsidies" of $300 million to $500 million to cover the cost of delivering mail across the United States that originates in other countries.
Bishar Hussein, UPU secretary-general, said that his nearly 150-year-old organisation had "the duty to ensure that everyone on this planet has access to the international mail".
The U.S. delegation has said it would be willing to accept a two-phased option allowing the United States to impose new rates immediately while giving other countries five years to do so.
(Production: Marina Depetris) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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