German, French post offices restrict packages to U.S. over tariffs

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BERLIN — The postal services of Germany and France on Friday announced a raft of restrictions on package deliveries to the United States due to tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.

DHL, which owns the Deutsche Post service, said that from Saturday it would “temporarily suspend” its standard category of U.S. package delivery, the preferred option for many small businesses.

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“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 U.S. authorities,” DHL said in a statement.

“Important questions have not yet been answered, including who will have to pay the tariffs and how,” it added.

France’s La Poste told AFP it would suspend from Monday package deliveries to the United States, except for gifts sent by individuals with a value of less than 100 euros (US$116).

It said the new rules had been issued only on Aug. 15, “leaving European postal services with an extremely limited timeframe to get prepared.

“Moreover, their related documentation still requires further clarification,” La Poste added in a statement.

Each year the French service sends 1.6 million packages on average to the United States, 80 percent from businesses and 20 percent from individuals.

– Extra checks –

Other European postal services, including in Belgium, Austria and Denmark, have already taken similar measures.

DHL said a more expensive “express” service for packages weighing up to 70 kilograms (154 pounds) would still be available.

Individual customers will also still be able to send items as presents with a maximum value of $100 (86 euros) but DHL warned that these would be subject to extra checks to prevent the service being used for commercial goods.

In late July the Trump administration said that as of August 29 it would abolish a tax exemption on small packages entering the U.S.

Such packages with a value of less than $800 will now be taxed at 15 percent, 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.

In April, DHL said it was suspending delivery of packages to the United States with a value in excess of $800.

It cited changes to U.S. Customs rules as part of Trump’s trade war, which lowered the threshold at which parcels to individuals require formal entry processing by U.S. Customs to $800 from $2,500 — leading to significant delays.