"For many years, sellers in China have been able to ship for less from China to America than local American sellers can domestically, thanks to something called

"For many years, sellers in China have been able to ship for less from China to America than local American sellers can domestically, thanks to something called ePacket." This system was undoubtedly maintained so that US business could get cheap labor rates in China. Sending mail from China should be more expensive than domestically if the cost is based on distance. However, that would be a barrier to trade. US business spent the 90s trying to outsource manufacturing to China and a barrier to trade would foil that plan to exploit cheap labor overseas and avoid unionization domestically. Clearly the US national business community must feel threatened by China's changing policies or by a change in their negotiating position or this wouldn't be going through.