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There's an entire section in the article about how bad it is for the US. One excerpt: "According to the Postal Regulatory Commission, the independent agency th

There's an entire section in the article about how bad it is for the US. One excerpt: "According to the Postal Regulatory Commission, the independent agency that rules on postal rate proposals, the loss to USPS attributable to terminal dues reached $134.5 million in fiscal year 2016 and $170 million in fiscal year 2017" Spending over $170 million a year (and rising, especially with the massive yoy increases of packages shipped from China) and making it easier for your largest (by far) economic rival to sell in your country than companies that are established in your country is pretty terrible, I would argue.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago
You didn't answer the other question, which is just as important. What are the consequences of it ending? Not just to China, but to the US and the world? The article doesn't address that except to say "Beijing may retaliate" and "USPS wants to establish agreements with foreign posts." You can't weigh two options if you only know the weight of one of them.
- chipperyman573 7y ago
  You could make the same argument about China. Why shouldn't they just agree to no longer be subsidized in exchange for keeping the US in the trade agreement? Either the price different isn't a huge deal, and China should just pay the cost of the shipments, or the price is a big enough deal that China finds this extremely unfavorable, and "the US should just keep doing it because it's not a big deal" no longer applies.
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    I haven't even made a firm argument yet. I'm trying to find out what's actually in the balance so I can make an informed decision. It may well be that there's no major downside for the US, or for anyone except China. If you can show me evidence of that, I'd love to see it! But this administration has a history of rash, unconsidered actions based on nothing more than pride, so I don't think it's unreasonable to want to see that evidence before I take them at their word.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    > You could make the same argument about China. That's true, but this is a discussion about what the US should do to protect US interests, not about what China should do to protect Chinese interests. This is exactly the childish "well they started it!" attitude I'm talking about. China is not going to look out for US interests, nor even should they. The US has to look out for US interests, and the US needs to do that by weighing our options and choosing the ones that make sense, not by blaming China and trying to exact petty vengeance. I don't know what the right thing to do here is, but the only way one possibly could know the right thing to do is by comparing the costs of our options, and there's a complete lack of information on this thread about what the costs of leaving the global postal union are. If you don't know what those costs are, you aren't informed enough to have an opinion on whether we should leave, period. And whining about what other countries do should have no place in deciding what we do. Have some pride for god's sake, take responsibility for your own choices and stop blaming other people.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago

You didn't answer the other question, which is just as important. What are the consequences of it ending? Not just to China, but to the US and the world? The article doesn't address that except to say "Beijing may retaliate" and "USPS wants to establish agreements with foreign posts." You can't weigh two options if you only know the weight of one of them.

chipperyman573 7y ago
You could make the same argument about China. Why shouldn't they just agree to no longer be subsidized in exchange for keeping the US in the trade agreement? Either the price different isn't a huge deal, and China should just pay the cost of the shipments, or the price is a big enough deal that China finds this extremely unfavorable, and "the US should just keep doing it because it's not a big deal" no longer applies.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  I haven't even made a firm argument yet. I'm trying to find out what's actually in the balance so I can make an informed decision. It may well be that there's no major downside for the US, or for anyone except China. If you can show me evidence of that, I'd love to see it! But this administration has a history of rash, unconsidered actions based on nothing more than pride, so I don't think it's unreasonable to want to see that evidence before I take them at their word.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > You could make the same argument about China. That's true, but this is a discussion about what the US should do to protect US interests, not about what China should do to protect Chinese interests. This is exactly the childish "well they started it!" attitude I'm talking about. China is not going to look out for US interests, nor even should they. The US has to look out for US interests, and the US needs to do that by weighing our options and choosing the ones that make sense, not by blaming China and trying to exact petty vengeance. I don't know what the right thing to do here is, but the only way one possibly could know the right thing to do is by comparing the costs of our options, and there's a complete lack of information on this thread about what the costs of leaving the global postal union are. If you don't know what those costs are, you aren't informed enough to have an opinion on whether we should leave, period. And whining about what other countries do should have no place in deciding what we do. Have some pride for god's sake, take responsibility for your own choices and stop blaming other people.