Dive Brief:
- The United States Postal Service (USPS) has notified negotiated-service agreement (NSA) holders that NSAs will stand through their natural termination dates after U.S. officials announced the country would stay in the Universal Postal Union (UPU). The decision came Wednesday after an Extraordinary Congress voted to approve a U.S.-backed compromise plan to gradually let members set their own postal rates.
- USPS had previously sent notices to NSA holders roughly three weeks before last week's meeting, warning that the institution may not be able to honor NSA rates after Sept. 30 if the U.S. left the UPU.
- "We are pleased to inform you that the United States has expressed its unequivocal intention to rescind its notice of withdrawal from the Universal Postal Union (UPU). Therefore, your agreement is, and will remain in effect according to the terms of the fully executed agreement. This message serves as confirmation that the Postal Service withdraws the termination notice sent to you on August 22, 2019," reads an email sent to an NSA-holder last week and shared with Supply Chain Dive. A USPS spokesperson declined to confirm that NSA's would stand even after the U.S. confirmed its continued UPU membership stating. "We don’t offer comments on NSA’s, as they are proprietary in nature," the USPS spokesperson told to Supply Chain Dive in an email.
Dive Insight:
A sigh of relief spread across the USPS stakeholder community Wednesday after the vote.
"The proposal adopted by the Universal Postal Union is aimed at eliminating economic distortions for the distribution of goods, by establishing parity with comparable domestic services for inbound packet volumes," Postmaster General and CEO Megan J. Brennan said in a statement. She added that the result of the new dynamic will support capacity-building infrastructure and advance electronic customs data transmission postal security.
Though the uncertainty caused by a UPU without the U.S. will not darken this peak season, the U.S. and any other countries importing more than 75,000 metric tons of parcels and mail will be able to set their own postal rates as of July 2020 so global postal dynamics are still in for a shake-up — just not yet.
