The postal services of France and Germany announced a raft of restrictions on package deliveries to the United States on Friday, August 22, due to tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.
France's La Poste told AFP agency it would suspend package deliveries to the US from Monday, except for gifts sent by individuals with a value of less than €100. It said the new tariff rules had been issued only on August 15, "leaving European postal services with an extremely limited timeframe to get prepared," La Poste said in a statement, adding, "Related documentation still requires further clarification." Each year, La Poste sends an average of 1.6 million packages to the US, 80% from businesses and 20% from individuals.
DHL, which owns Germany's Deutsche Post service, said that from Saturday it would "temporarily suspend" its standard category of US package delivery, the preferred option for many small businesses. "The reason for the restrictions, which we expect to be temporary, are new processes for postal delivery which have been put in place by the US authorities," DHL said in a statement. "Important questions have not yet been answered, including who will have to pay the tariffs and how."
DHL said a more expensive express service for packages weighing up to 70 kilograms would still be available. Individual customers will also still be able to send items as presents with a maximum value equivalent to $100, but DHL warned that these would be subject to extra checks to prevent the service being used for commercial goods.
Other European postal services, including in Belgium, Austria and Denmark, have already taken similar measures.
In late July, the Trump administration said that as of August 29 it would abolish a tax exemption on small packages entering the US. Such packages with a value of less than $800 will now be taxed at 15%, the same rate as other imports from the European Union. That general tariff rate was agreed under a deal struck between Brussels and Washington late last month.