Director general of the UPU, Bishar A Hussein, has visited the White House in the US to meet with President Donald J Trump to display a letter revoking the US’s decision to withdraw from the UN specialized agency for postal matters.
Hussein said, “I am convinced that the maintenance of the worldwide postal system is a victory for everyone on this planet. It is to the great credit of the United States of America, and in particular, the assistant to the President and director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, Dr Peter Navarro; the delegations of many other countries; and my negotiating team that we managed to find a compromise.”
Dated October 10, 2019, the letter addressed to Hussein states, “Accordingly, the denunciation shall not take effect and the United States shall remain a party to the UPU Constitution and a member of the Universal Postal Union.”
On October 17, 2018, the UPU received a letter of denunciation from the US, which would have come into effect one year after the day it was received if it had not been revoked.
In a September 25 agreement at the UPU’s third Extraordinary Congress in Geneva, Switzerland, member countries decided to accelerate rate increases to the system for remunerating the delivery of inbound international bulky letters and small packets, also known as the remuneration rate system. Self-declared rates are to be phased-in starting as soon as 2020.
Under the agreed solution, member countries that meet certain requirements – including inbound letter-post volumes in excess of 75,000 metric tons – would be able to opt-in to self-declare their rates starting July 1, 2020. Thresholds are included to protect low-volume, developing countries from the impact of the swift reform.