Indo-US trade tensions spill into postal services
FROM August 25, India Post will suspend most categories of mail to the US due to American carriers' refusal to process parcels under new US customs rules. Only letters, documents and gifts valued under $100 will continue to be accepted. The suspension, necessitated by an executive order in Washington that scraps the duty-free 'de minimis' facility, makes low-value imports into the US costlier and harder to ship. Unable to meet the compliance demands of this new regime, carriers have halted operations, forcing India Post to follow suit. India is not alone. Several European postal services have also suspended shipments to the US. This underscores that the problem lies not in the efficiency of national postal systems but in Washington's increasingly restrictive trade and customs framework. What seems like a technical matter of parcel processing is, in reality, an extension of tariff politics.
