President Trump has taken his conflict with China to the next level which will likely impact many eBay and 3rd party Amazon sellers among others.
From the Wall Street Journal:
The U.S. opened a new front in its mounting economic conflict with China, starting a process to withdraw from a 144-year-old international postal body whose discounts allow Chinese merchants to ship small packages to U.S. customers at sharply lower rates.
In announcing the move by the State Department, senior White House officials said Wednesday that the U.S. will go ahead with a threat to set its own “self-declared” rates for packages from abroad.
The Trump administration sought to cast the move in broader terms than just action against China. “The strategy is simply to stop the harm being done through a multilateral organization,” one official said. “This is not about China. It’s about unfair rates.” The official said Singapore and a number of other countries also unfairly benefit from the discounts.
The move addresses complaints from U.S. companies decrying China’s ability to undercut competition through cheap delivery costs. The discounts allow merchants to ship small packages to U.S. customers more cheaply from China than from U.S. warehouses, officials said.
“President Trump deserves tremendous credit for the administration’s focus on eliminating the anti-U.S. manufacturer subsidy China receives from the U.S. Postal Service,” Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, said in a statement responding to the planned withdrawal.
Until now, developing countries and China had received huge discounts on shipping to the U.S when compared to countries in Europe and North America. U.S manufacturers were paying more to ship their items domestically than manufacturers in China shipping to the U.S. The U.S will now setup their own rate for packages from abroad but will take at least six months to take effect. White House officials downplayed the possibility of U.S consumers having to pay more for online shopping, citing a greater benefit to domestic manufacturers and the USPS.