The United States Postal Service (USPS) said Wednesday it will continue to accept packages from China and Hong Kong, reversing the previous day’s announcement that package deliveries from the two locations had been suspended.
USPS first announced the brief suspension on its official website on the evening of 4 February (US time) in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order placing tariffs on goods from China, as well as Canada and Mexico.
It noted that, as of 4 February, “the Postal Service will temporarily suspend only international package acceptance of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong Posts until further notice. Note the flow of letters from China and Hong Kong will not be impacted.”
On Wednesday, this message had been replaced with a new statement, which read, “The USPS and Customs and Border Protection are working closely together to implement an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery.”
The confusion comes as a 10% tariff increase imposed by the United States on Chinese imports came into effect on Wednesday. According to media reports in Hong Kong, the measure also applies to Hong Kong – all products imported from Hong Kong to the US will from now be subject to the 10% tariff increase. Macau is not included in tariff policy.
China has responded to US President Donald Trump’s tariff policy by announcing the launch of an antitrust investigation into US tech giant Google.