This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The Trump administration will begin withdrawing from a United Nations treaty that offered low rates for foreign postal deliveries of small packages in the US – the latest move to challenge practices it sees as unfairly advantageous to China.

White House officials said on Wednesday the US would start the process of leaving the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a Switzerland-based organisation that connects postal services worldwide.

The White House said the UPU enabled foreign postal services to take advantage of cheap shipments to the US, creating an unfair cost advantage over US companies that shipped goods, and hurting the US Postal Service.

Shares of internet-based mailing and shipping provider Stamps.com fell nearly 9% after the announcement. Online shoppers in the US have often benefited from the arrangement, gaining access to foreign goods at little cost.

Donald Trump is distancing the US from international multilateral organisations and accompanying policies that he says hurt US interests.

Trump has made a point of cutting America’s international ties. In his first week in office he pulled the US out of a trade pact with 11 Pacific Rim countries, a move followed by the US withdrawal from the Paris agreement to mitigate climate change and an international deal with Iran to curb Tehran’s nuclear program.

Trump has also withdrawn the US from UNESCO and the United Nations Human Rights Council and pulled US funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

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The White House will seek to renegotiate the terms of the UPU rules during the year-long withdrawal process, officials said.

“If negotiations are successful, the administration is prepared to rescind the notice of withdrawal and remain in the UPU,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

UPU director general Bishar Hussein said he would seek meetings with US officials to discuss the matter.

“The UPU remains committed to attainment of the noble aims of international collaboration by working with all its 192 member countries to ensure that the treaty best serves everyone,” he said in a statement.

One senior White House said the treaty’s “subsidy” had facilitated the transfer of a high level of counterfeit goods and the narcotic and fentanyl trade.

Another official said the system allowed for a 40% to 70% discount on small packages arriving in the United States from China compared with what it would cost to send them domestically, costing $300m. The official described it as an economic distortion that the administration wanted to correct.

A change could benefit US merchants and shippers, including Amazon.com Inc, which have called on US officials for years to address foreign postal services’ access to low rates. Amazon declined to comment.

The National Association of Manufacturers called the agreement “outdated” and said it “contributes significantly to the flood of counterfeit goods and dangerous drugs that enter the country from China”.