HongKong Post said late on Thursday it will proceed to suspend postal goods to the USA, despite the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) having reversed a choice to suspend parcels from China and Hong Kong.
The move by USPS on Tuesday to stop accepting parcels from China and Hong Kong had caused chaos and confusion amongst retailers and express shipping firms over learn how to take care of U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent 10 per cent tariff on imports from China.
Trump’s move also included closing the “de minimis” duty exemption for packages valued at under $800, with the stated aim of stopping the flow of fentanyl and precursor chemicals into the USA.
USPS later reversed the 12-hour suspension after Trump scrapped an exemption utilized by retailers including Temu, Shein, and Amazon, to ship low-value packages duty-free to the USA.
China-ruled Hong Kong has also been subjected to the identical tariffs as China in response to a U.S. government notice that stated: “Articles which can be the products of China, which hereinafter will include products of Hong Kong … will likely be subject to the extra ad valorem rate of duty.”
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Hong Kong has long been often known as a free and open trading hub, but China’s imposition on Hong Kong of a sweeping national security law in 2020 drew criticism from the U.S. and led it to finish the previous British colony’s special status under U.S. law, escalating tensions between China and the U.S.
The U.S. subsequently stipulated that goods made in Hong Kong for export to the USA needed to be labelled as made in China, ending one in every of Hong Kong’s longstanding competitive benefits as a trading hub.
The Hong Kong government said in an announcement that it “reiterates its strong disapproval of the USA’ imposition of additional duty on products of Hong Kong” and “urges the USA to take urgent actions to rectify its wrongdoing, in order to avoid causing confusion and inconvenience to the general public owing to its always changing policies.”
—Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; and Jessie Pang and James Pomfret in Hong Kong; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Susan Fenton
