KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While the Postal Cor­po­ra­tion (TTPost) is still search­ing for a so­lu­tion to the Unit­ed States’ new trade pol­i­cy that has dis­rupt­ed small and mi­cro ex­porters, Uni­ver­sal Pack­age Sys­tems (UPS) says de­mand for its ser­vices re­mains steady.

Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor Wayne Chee Ting told Guardian Me­dia that de­spite TTPost sus­pend­ing its par­cel ser­vice to the US, it is “busi­ness as usu­al” for UPS. Speak­ing by phone, he con­firmed that UPS of­fers the same small-pack­age ser­vice and stands ready to fill the gap, ex­port­ing to more than 210 des­ti­na­tions world­wide, but there has been no in­creased de­mand.

Last Fri­day, TTPost an­nounced a tem­po­rary halt on ship­ments of goods to the US af­ter the Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment end­ed its du­ty-free de min­imis ex­emp­tion for im­ports un­der US$800. The ex­ec­u­tive or­der, signed on Ju­ly 30, means all goods en­ter­ing the US are now sub­ject to cus­toms du­ties. The change has sig­nif­i­cant­ly raised costs for small and mi­cro ex­porters who de­pend­ed on the ex­emp­tion to ship du­ty-free.

Postal agen­cies across the globe have sus­pend­ed or re­strict­ed US ship­ments, in­clud­ing those in In­dia, Japan, South Ko­rea, Tai­wan, Thai­land, New Zealand, Ger­many, France, Aus­tria, Swe­den, Den­mark, the UK, Mex­i­co, and sev­er­al Caribbean na­tions. They cite un­clear cus­toms da­ta re­quire­ments, in­abil­i­ty to act as US tax col­lec­tors, and risks of ship­ment re­turns or penal­ties. While UPS and FedEx con­tin­ue to op­er­ate with new fees, DHL has stopped ac­cept­ing busi­ness parcels to the US from Ger­many, France, and Aus­tria. On­line plat­forms such as Et­sy and eBay have al­so sus­pend­ed la­bel ser­vices for af­fect­ed postal car­ri­ers, while ma­jor re­tail­ers like Shein and Temu now face soar­ing costs and sup­ply chain over­hauls.

Chee Ting said UPS has not pro­mot­ed it­self as an al­ter­na­tive for SMEs, since mar­ket­ing is han­dled by its cor­po­rate head­quar­ters. How­ev­er, he con­firmed the par­ent com­pa­ny is mon­i­tor­ing and ad­dress­ing de­vel­op­ments, and the Trinidad op­er­a­tion ex­pects fur­ther guid­ance.

Asked whether TTPost or gov­ern­ment agen­cies or min­istries had ap­proached UPS to sup­port small busi­ness­es, Chee Ting re­called on­ly one pre­vi­ous re­quest from TTPost ear­li­er this year to as­sist with mov­ing pack­ages from Cana­da to Trinidad.

“Sub­se­quent to that, I have not heard from them,” he said.

He not­ed that the sit­u­a­tion was not un­ex­pect­ed, giv­en shift­ing glob­al lo­gis­tics and trade poli­cies. Even UPS, he warned, may even­tu­al­ly face chal­lenges.

“It is a glob­al arrange­ment. It im­pacts the sup­ply chain. It im­pacts ex­press ser­vices be­cause you would have heard that Don­ald Trump has is­sued an ex­ec­u­tive or­der to re­tract the de min­imis sys­tem in the Unit­ed States. Ship­ments that would have en­tered in­to the US free of du­ty and tax­es if un­der US$800 are now du­tiable. So yes, it is go­ing to have an im­pact.”