A 3.3% hike in international postal rates has been authorized by the U.S. Postal Service’s Board of Governors.
The new international postage rate schedule, unanimously approved by postal governors, becomes effective on May 30. The USPS said the hike was needed to cover its increased costs of providing the service.
Under that schedule, which does not affect letter and letter package rates, a it would cost a U.S. cataloger $1.68, or about 2 cents more to send an individual 14 ounce catalog to Germany and $54.96 if they send a bunch of them in a bundle weighing 20 pounds.
The same cataloger would pay $15.70 instead of $9 to send a two pound package with a customer’s order to Europe or Asia and $11.33 instead of $6.95 to send the same order to Canada by surface parcel post.
In a separate development, the Clinton Administration called a temporary truce in its trade war with the European Communities, agreeing to send their dispute, which could severely affect the product offerings of many U.S. direct marketers and cataloger, to arbitration before the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement body.
This later move means that the U.S., for the time being, will not double the tariffs on selected European-made goods in retaliation for the EC’s preferential treatment to British and French-owned companies over American companies, in the importation of bananas to Europe.
A doubling of those tariffs, totaling some $520 million, would have sent the cost of meats, cheese, baked goods, candles, films, leather goods, clothing, and many small appliances made in Europe which are among the offerings of many U.S. catalogers, as well as send the prices of papers used for catalogs through the roof.
And as noted previously by Roscoe B. Starek III, the Direct Marketing Association’s senior vice president, catalog industry, this could have had a devastating effect on U.S. marketers and catalogers as they would either have to raise the prices of many of their European-made products or simply absorb the cost, with a major effect on their profit margins.
Renato Ruggiero, director general of the World Trade Organization, disclosed in Geneva, Switzerland, that the U.S. and the EC agreed to try and resolve their trade dispute through binding arbitration as suggested a day earlier by the WTO’s dispute settlement body.
While he was saying that the agreement provides the WTO with a way of solving the dispute within its rules, the Clinton Administration through U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky gave the WTO until March 2 to find a solution. If no solution is reached by then, she said, the U.S. will implement its tariff doubling plan.
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