POSTAL UNION OKs DEAL TO KEEP MAIL RUNNING GLOBALLY

GENEVA» President Donald Trump’s trade adviser hailed a “big deal” approved as a compromise Wednesday that will increase the fees the U.S. Postal Service collects from some foreign counterparts and keep the United States from leaving the United Nations’ postal agency over what was largely a showdown with China.

Peter Navarro was dispatched from Washington with a U.S. delegation to help reform the Universal Postal Union at a time when e-commerce has vastly reshaped the postal business and private, non-postal operators like UPS, DHL, FedEx and others want to snare a larger market share.

The administration had threatened leaving a group the United States helped create in 1874.

The head of the 192-member body, Kenya’s Bishar Hussein, warned that a U.S. walkout would “completely shut down” the traditional system of shipping some types of mail. The extraordinary congress, called this week to respond to the U.S. threat, was only the third for a 145-year-old group that calls itself the second-oldest multilateral organization.

UPU members exchanged hugs, handshakes and high-fives after voting by acclamation in favor of the compromise. The deal, which is to be phased-in over the coming years, will allow countries to choose, or “self-declare,” the rates their postal operators can recoup from foreign partners.

The United States will fast-track to “immediate self-declared rates” as of the end of June next year.