It's managed by the Universal Postal Union, which is part of the UN, and the organisation has been in effect in one form or another since 1874 with 192 members currently. International treaties between so many countries are extremely difficult to reform. It's much easier to make a new treaty than reform an existing one because there are so many vested interests in the current system.

In this case, the subsidy is designed to help developing countries have fair access to the global post system. But when it was created, it was likely not envisioned that a developing country might become a rich country, nor that the postal system would become such an important part of e-commerce.

Good question. I guess you have to ask those responsible.

They're implicit subsidies.

So here it goes: there's an international treaty saying basically "if a letter from your country is delivered in my contry, I'll deliver it for free and vice versa". So, you pay your national post some "international handling" so they e.g. deliver it to China, but in China the national post is now responsible for distribution and last mile for free, they don't see a part of your postage.

So it's subsidized now by the Chinese post basically: they only charge cents for "international shipping" to their citizens and businesses, last mile is handled for free from the local national post offices.

That system obviously was designed to work frictionless and easy in a time, where there was no globalized market to speak of.

It's not so easy to reform and just cancel it might be a disadvantage as well: then all your other mailing stuff needs renegotiating as well. Just imagine the horror in canceling the treaty, and then you need to sit down with dealmaker Trump who sees an opportunity in order to get the US Post to handle your mail 😱

easier to add a new agreement than cancel an old i guess. treaties are hard

Then regulate the products and impose fines?

and not forget sites like temu burn money to sell this stuff cheap while these have to actually run a profitable business. But 100 Billion Alibaba and 50 Billion Temu are the good guys in this, i guess

You should reread their comment, you agree with each other.

Aren't those same cheap products coming in through corporations that sell it under some brand at triple the cost?

The "local" industries have already been decimated by the big conglomerates which imported the same cheap Chinese stuff and sold it as a hilarious profit.

Maybe it's different in Europe, but in the US, my options are generally buy a Chinese-made product close to directly from the manufacturer via AliExpress or what have you or buy (often the same exact) a Chinese-made product through an American named big box store for 10x or even 25x the price.

Buy local, buy ecological

Awesome, show me a local manufacturer who deals with speciality electronics and sensors and does them €3-4 apiece.

Why?

For example, i can order 25 $ Handguards for my bike, that are 100% identical to the original part, which costs 120 €

I'm with you on certain things, but some companies just make a lot of money with overprizing

provided it's something you can even buy here.

Germany is its own beast. For the longest time i couldn't pay electronically at the post office because they only accepted EC, and no Visa/Mastercard/Apple Pay. with my french bank i don't have that, so i had to bring cash always.

this is the kind of e-mail i get when i have a delivery with customs fee:

edit: and the most funny thing was that the amount in the e-mail wasn't even correct, so now i have my vat of coins i collect in a drawer to adjust to the final surprise amount that needs to be paid :>

Your DHL shipment will be delivered to you today by your mail and package carrier.

The import duties in the amount of €25.67 (including a €7.50 handling fee and the VAT included therein) are to be paid in cash upon delivery, with exact change if possible.