Postal services in Europe suspend parcel shipments to US amid uncertainty over tariffs

Brussels: Postal services across Europe have suspended most parcel shipments to the US, citing widespread uncertainty about the impact of new import tariffs announced by Donald Trump.

France’s La Poste on Monday joined other operators, including Germany’s Deutsche Post, Spain’s Correos, Poste Italiane and the Belgian, Swedish and Danish postal services, which all halted a majority of US-bound shipments over the weekend.

Austria’s Österreichische Post and the UK’s Royal Mail said they would stop accepting packages on Tuesday, to allow enough time for packages posted before then to arrive in the US before the tariffs, scheduled to come into force at the end of August, kick in.

The US president last month signed an executive order abolishing from 29 August a tax exemption that allowed small packages worth less than $800 – the preferred option for many small European businesses – to enter the US duty-free.

A total of 1.36bn packages were sent last year under the so-called “de minimis” exemption, containing goods worth $64.6bn, according to US Customs, but such parcels will now face a 15% tariff – the same rate as most other imports from the EU.

Analysts have said that the regulatory changes, if they are maintained, are likely to have a considerable impact, particularly on small and medium-sized European companies exporting lower-value goods to the US.

European postal services said they would continue to ship letters and parcels sent by individuals containing gifts worth less than €100, but warned that these would be subject to extra checks to prevent the service being used for commercial goods.

The operators blamed widespread uncertainty about how the new tariffs would work, as well as a lack of time to prepare.

“Key questions remain, particularly regarding who will have to pay the tariffs and how, what additional data will be required, and how data will be transmitted to US Customs,” said DHL, Europe’s largest logistics company, which owns Deutsche Post.

The company said it was no longer “accepting or transporting parcels and postal items containing goods from business customers destined for the US”.

La Poste, which sends 1.6m packages on average to the US each year, 80% of them from businesses and 20% from individuals, said the new rules had been confirmed by US authorities only on 15 August.

The late announcement had left European postal services with “an extremely limited timeframe to get prepared. Moreover, the rules’ related documentation still requires further clarification,” the French operator said.

Poste Italiane said it had been “forced to temporarily suspend acceptance of all shipments containing merchandise destined for the US”. The Nordic logistics company PostNord said the the pause was “unfortunate but necessary”.

The Dutch postal service, PostNL, said the Trump administration was pressing ahead with the new duties despite US authorities lacking a system to collect them, while Royal Mail said it hoped the interruption would last only a few days.

PostEurop, an association of 51 European public postal operators, said that if no practical solutions could be found before 29 August, it was likely that all its members would suspend the bulk of parcel shipments to the US.