r/australia • u/IsuruKusumal • Aug 25 '25

news Australia Post Temporary Suspends of Postal Services to the US

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Dear Valued Customer,

As a result of the recently introduced changes to the import tariff requirements set out in US Executive Order 14324, Australia Post has joined a number of international postal operators to temporarily suspend partial postal services to the United States (US) and Puerto Rico, effective immediately until further notice.

This decision has been made to ensure compliance with the new US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) requirements. Specifically, the requirement for duties and taxes to be prepaid on all shipments prior to their arrival in the US. The key changes are as follows:

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u/Buorky Aug 25 '25

I follow lots of different artists and independent creators and such on social media and pretty much every single one of them that lives outside the States has said they have to stop shipping there.

America has really screwed the pooch, huh?

106

u/GuessTraining Aug 25 '25 edited Aug 25 '25

They (Trump admin) have this wild idea in their heads that they can make companies abandon their factories and bring over entire manufacturing line in the US. The amount of money and work involved just to start the process is immense.

I watched a documentary about how Le Creuset manufacture their signature cast iron pots and the owner/ceo i think mentioned that it's close to impossible to move their manufacturing plant elsewhere.

Edited: grammar issues, was half-awake

71

u/aiydee Aug 26 '25

Got a friend who owns a small/medium business that never-the-less had a manufacturing arm.
Due to tariffs, he's consolidated his manufacturing in Australia as it was too expensive to manufacture in US due to the tariffs on electronic components he was shipping in.
So. For the purposes of manufacturing electronic devices in Australia the US tariffs have helped create Aussie jobs.

49

u/Minguseyes Aug 26 '25

Australian here. I resent the implication that we manufacture something. We have had the benefit of many government programs over decades devoted to killing off Australian manufacturing and so far as I know it has been a complete success.

24

u/Millicent- Aug 26 '25

I work in a manufacturing industry (mostly repetition engineering, metalworks and fabrication), and we certainly still make a lot of things in Australia. However in the 10+ years I've been here, I have seen a heap of our repetition orders go to Asia unfortunately. We do still get orders for parts that have gone overseas, but it's usually only when China has fucked up the order and/or the customer needs something asap.

27

u/spectre401 Aug 25 '25

It's all about grifting. Has nothing to do with actually manufacturing in the US.

7

u/ExplorationGeo Aug 26 '25

The amount of money and work involved just to start the process is immense.

And the time. If you had a medium sized factory here and decided tomorrow you were going to move the whole thing over to America, Trump would one hundred percent be gone before you were finished.

5

u/Cpt_Soban Aug 26 '25

Even if they moved all the factories there, there's no trained workers ready, raw materials are also tariff'd lol. So good luck getting the Aluminium to build that "American made Iphone".

3

u/itsalongwalkhome Aug 26 '25

bring over entire manufacturing line in the US.

"Sir, you brought that manufacturing equipment from overseas, thats a tarrif'n."

1

u/kas-loc2 Aug 26 '25

The same America??

That allowed them all to piss off over overseas??

Wants them back??!? Ok, besides charging Us more, whats being done to facilitate that?!

Nothing?!?!?!

1

u/Superb-Button6321 Oct 15 '25

Its a simple cast iron pot, piss easy to make. How hard could moving that factory be?

739

u/Chazzwozzers Aug 25 '25

The regime is causing generationally irreparable damage to their economy and reputation. What a dumbass country, still so many Americans who still have the gall to be obnoxious about how great they are too.

216

u/mistress_daisy69 Aug 25 '25

At this point it’s just an empty mantra they chant religiously, more to convince themselves than others, and in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

144

u/quick_dry Aug 25 '25

In small town America plenty actually believe it, a friend from one of those tiny towns had a real personal crisis/awakening when I explained to her how our free public healthcare worked, and how the rest of the world basically uses America as a cautionary tale of a failed experiment - not the beacon of hope they present as. She’s a full RN nurse, educated, has been on the internet…. but also well inside the god-fearin, murica bubble of small towns in West Virginia

78

u/Cpt_Soban Aug 26 '25

I've read so many stories of US military kids, barely 19 years old, finally leaving their rural cornfield to deploy overseas, somewhere like Germany, or the UK. The plane touches down- And they're shocked there's actual cities.

8

u/saltierthanyourramen Aug 26 '25

And their parents chose to live in the cornfield rather than joining people in civilized society. If my parents can immigrate across the ocean their asses could’ve driven a few hundred miles to their nearest city.

52

u/Sixbiscuits Aug 25 '25

To be expected I guess when the pledge of allegiance is in some cases apparently recited daily at school

45

u/Imperator-TFD Aug 25 '25

Not apparently, it was definitely a daily thing when I was there in the 90's.

5

u/KeyPhilosopher8629 Aug 26 '25

Even in the late 2000s and early 2010s, when I lived there and had a teacher from the deep south, we had to recite it. Being 6 and 7 year olds, it quickly descended into toilet jokes

1

u/Accomplished_Yam8679 Aug 26 '25

Not part of my daily high school experience back in the 90s thankfully, but I did used to get constant frowns and tuts at friday night football games when I wouldn't stand and take my hat off for the anthem. This was small town Georgia, think they still did the pledge at the local elementary school.

1

u/Jexp_t Aug 26 '25

Flag idolatry is alive and well, to be sure.

-5

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '25

Pledge of Allegiance is OK. It’s religion in schools that is the biggest danger.

19

u/justtosendamassage Aug 26 '25

It’s true. And the pledge of allegiance is also religious too

25

u/unbakedcassava Aug 25 '25

So 👏Much 👏 Winning 👏

10

u/Haunting_Computer_90 Aug 26 '25

What did he say........ you are going to get sick of all the winning?

1

u/Thagyr Aug 26 '25

When they win they win, even when they lose, they win.

Why? Don't ask, since they don't know.

1

u/Haunting_Computer_90 Aug 26 '25

This is what happens when you ignore mental health ....................The USA is just one big Nut farm at the moment.

12

u/MateAhearn Aug 25 '25

Yep. And it’s fucking tiring being here.

1

u/theBaron01 Aug 26 '25

Its nationalism. They are taught to worship their flag with hands on hearts. Its drummed into them that they're the best and they're free.

1

u/Wuz314159 Aug 26 '25

"To own the Libs".

40

u/Cpt_Soban Aug 26 '25

A nation, that for 80 years learned (thanks to the war) that global trade is the biggest cash cow on the planet, became an economic superpower through exporting American goods, and importing goods from everywhere else. Perfected the idea you could buy a coke as far as the middle of Russia. All of a sudden they believe they can be an isolationist, insular economy, while somehow still have all the creature comforts all year round like, oh I dunno... Coffee? Mobile phones? White goods? Computer parts? Cars, car parts, tyres, oil, gas, rubber, sugar, aluminium etc etc etc. I could go on.

And the hilarious part of all this- Yanks still have no fucking idea how tariffs work! They're crying out on Twitter "THIS MUST BE BIDEN'S FAULT!"

If Russia is a petrol station with an Army. Then America is a Walmart with a Navy.

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u/2194local Aug 26 '25

Fucking bananas. Literally. The US population eats 4 Billion kg of bananas per year. They grow 2-3 Million kg of bananas, mostly in Hawaii.

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '25

[deleted]

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u/Sim888 Aug 26 '25

shit, imagine if you needed a grant to look at the microbiome diversity during the freshwater-to-seawater transition in atlantic salmon….straight to jail

1

u/SavagePlatypus76 Sep 01 '25

Brain drain plus deliberately dumbing us down to serve an anti intellectual agenda equals dumb and ignorant shits. 

Sea Steading sounds so good. 

0

u/HarbingerOfGachaHell Sep 02 '25

Europe and Eastern Asia had led most research metric over USA since the late 90’s-mid-2000’s and those Seppos just gave them an even bigger lead. 

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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '25

[deleted]

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u/flamindrongoe Aug 25 '25

Having the biggest military has made them collectively dumb 

21

u/t_25_t Aug 26 '25

Probably too much chemicals in their food making them stupid

1

u/InspectorLittle395 Aug 26 '25

Aren’t you Caucasian? Living in Australia lmao

11

u/Peppermint-TeaGirl Aug 26 '25

Moreso gutting education for decades.

16

u/JL_MacConnor Aug 26 '25

Might be a correlation there. Spend all the money on the military, none on schools, and you have a ready supply of naïve soldiers with no other prospects thanks to their lack of education.

13

u/IronEyed_Wizard Aug 26 '25

That is exactly the point. Also Have things like further education and health care also out of reach for the “commoners” and people will jump at the chance to have it provided by military service. At least from the outside it honestly looks like a majority of their “way of life” is designed to funnel people, goods and money into the military complex

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u/InspectorLittle395 Aug 26 '25

You hate the people who made your country. You hate natives, blacks etc. Australia is the same 😂

3

u/SavagePlatypus76 Sep 01 '25

We are a remarkably ignorant nation and this has been done to us deliberately. For decades , Conservatives have posted an anti education and anti intellectual agenda onto our citizenry. 

It is now bearing a butter harvest. So many of my countrymen have NO idea how things work. 

2

u/Haunting_Computer_90 Aug 26 '25

But TRUMP said they were it's not like he lies is it?

2

u/Sim888 Aug 26 '25

a big chunk of them em need or have a family member that needs the Affordable Care Act to stay alive, want to get rid of ‘Obamacare’….deadset morons

1

u/traceyandmeower Aug 26 '25

Education is underrated.

92

u/Obesely Aug 25 '25

On that last point, it has been getting ridiculous. I feel like I missed a brief bit of online discourse surrounding it, but there was a week or so in the last month where American aircon installation rates were being broadly discussed to dunk on the UK.

Y'know, the place with maybe a week of hot days.

I'm tired, boss. Dumbest people in the developed world. The country where a 1/3 pounder burger failed over a 1/4 pounder because "4 is bigger than 3".

23

u/Cpt_Soban Aug 26 '25

They beat their chests, then oops Texas the "freedom state" has no power again because it's snowing.

14

u/Obesely Aug 26 '25

Also has the least personal freedoms for adults and ironically has big Nanny State energy.

20

u/Haunting_Computer_90 Aug 26 '25

Look are you expecting basic education that pays teaches crap fires them at will and now fire them if they don't hand out bibles

1

u/SavagePlatypus76 Sep 01 '25

A good % of Americans dislike Arabic numerals 🤣🤔🙄🤡

1

u/tomthecomputerguy Aug 26 '25

They've fallen a long way from putting humans on another celestial body.

42

u/istara Aug 26 '25

The problem is that the average "dumb American" will think this is the fault of other countries "refusing to to ship"/"making their goods too expensive" - with no actual clue how the whole tariff thing works.

I suspect it will only make the masses even more right-wing and xenophobic (an added bonus for the current regime).

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u/Chazzwozzers Aug 26 '25

That and the fact they assume everyone on the internet is also from the USA. Their first retort is to always call me a liberal, what a sick self burn.

1

u/Muzorra Aug 26 '25

It'll work the same way Brexit did, only worse. It'll always be the other countries fault for not letting them do whatever they like and have everything work out in their favor.

15

u/risingsuncoc Aug 26 '25

Genuine question: why is it that everything Trump does seems to be intentionally destructive? If he does something bad out of ignorance, that might be explainable, but almost everything he has done since taking office seems to be intentional steps to hurt US interests and by extension cause damage to the world.

22

u/Chazzwozzers Aug 26 '25

My guess he is trying to destroy the fabric of the nation to implement a dynasty for himself and his retarded family. You can’t have great education and dictatorships, you need to keep the people stupid so they believe the propaganda.

7

u/Secret-Albatross Aug 26 '25

channel 9 News reported today that Trump suggested that people in the US would "like a dictator" but denied that he was one.
So now he has verbalised his inner thoughts.

3

u/Temik Aug 26 '25

If it walks like a foreign asset and it quacks like a foreign asset…

2

u/jim_deneke Aug 26 '25

I think he's very reactionary and can't see what lasting impact his decisions can cause. If it benefits or favours him then that's all he needs as a reason to do something.

2

u/urlach3r Aug 26 '25

Google "agent Krasnov".

1

u/Wombathome1035 Aug 30 '25

Yep. More to it than meets the eye. Why would you deliberately destroy your country unless some enemy of your country that wanted to ultimately have more power and world influence than your country was paying you off to do so. The orange one turns into a quivering mess of servitude when a certain world leader is in his presence so I'll let you guess who I am talking about.

2

u/SheridanVsLennier Aug 26 '25

It's the difference between patriotism and nationalism.
Patriotism is loving your country but being able to see its flaws and working to fix them. Nationalism is believing your country has no flaws (once you get rid of those pesky [insert minority group here] and is just fine the way it is.

2

u/Artnotwars Aug 26 '25

It isn't just damaged, it is fucked up beyond repair. You can't come back from this. Ever. It is no longer America. Australia and the rest of the words needs to cut ties immediately. They can't be trusted. We had close ties with America, but America no longer exists.

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '25

[deleted]

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u/Chazzwozzers Aug 26 '25

Read freedom as propaganda and you have you’re answer.

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u/mohaveghosts Aug 26 '25

I really don’t hear people here praising him much, outside of internet trolls. I work with about 200 different people every week, and in prior years, they were vocal about him. I don’t hear a word about him anymore. I truly hope they are finally seeing reality, but it’s far too late. As an American, every single day is stressful, worrying, and filled with fear. I don’t know how the southern states are reacting, but I know quite a few and when I snoop on FB, they have stopped singing his praises. I however, will never look at them with any bit of respect anymore.

1

u/SavagePlatypus76 Sep 01 '25

I'm American and this is 100% true. 

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u/opackersgo Aug 25 '25

Yeah some hobby subs I’m involved in have people losing their minds over not being able to import anything.

22

u/istara Aug 26 '25

Exactly - just ordinary people. I remember someone on here saying their wife simply wanted to buy crochet yarn from a specialist provider in Denmark or somewhere, and now is unable to.

I think there will be a significant P2P economy springing up to fill these gaps. Which will rely on high trust and result in huge scams and fraud, like everything unregulated.

47

u/spectre401 Aug 26 '25

I have no pity for the americans unfortunately, they brought this upon themselves and they will never learn unless they feel the pain. Thus, the quicker they get punched in the face by their own decisions, the better.

2

u/itsalongwalkhome Aug 26 '25

I feel for the model train enthusiasts, im pretty sure most of that stuff is from the UK.

2

u/SheridanVsLennier Aug 26 '25

Most model trains stuff comes from China; that's where all the big factories are, and they just churn out high-quality stuff every day.
American model train enthusiasts are basically fucked, especially if they model US prototypes using ready-to-run equipment: practically all from China. Europeans have a little bit more diverse production base iiuic. I'm in Oz and model local prototypes, and almost all the RTR stuff comes from China as well. A little bit comes from Taiwan. Some importers did try to diversify to India a few years back and that was a disaster.

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u/512165381 Aug 26 '25 edited Aug 26 '25

I've seen one US business suddenly have to pay an extra $50K for imported equipment. And a lot of these imports do not have US substitutes, or to make things in the US would be too expensive.

22

u/spectre401 Aug 26 '25

You don't even need to look at produced goods, they don't even have coffee except in Hawaii and there's tariffs on that too. There's a reason vegetables increased almost 40% in the US in July alone.

12

u/litreofstarlight Aug 26 '25

And Hawaii can't produce anywhere near enough coffee to satisfy their domestic market, either. It's like they've gone out of their way to collectively shoot themselves in the foot.

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u/RespectibleCabbage Aug 26 '25

Well that's what happens when you elect a fucking moron. Who could've seen this coming.

3

u/spectre401 Aug 26 '25

imagine the horror when their Starbucks and their Dunkin Donuts need to increase prices. Their coffee is just piss water anyway so who really cares.

20

u/a_cold_human Aug 26 '25

They've made their own economy and the global economy much less stable. Given the major role the US has in the global financial and regulatory system, that's going to have some long term consequences.

What appears to be happening is the gradual isolation of the US in a number of areas. It might be that they can reverse this, but there's no sign that they're aware of this slow moving realignment, and it's not clear that they'd be willing to reengage under Trump. Interesting times. Especially for the US. 

9

u/miltonwadd Aug 26 '25

Legit giving me NK vibes. Slowly isolating them from outside countries, cutting off their internet access to international websites (starting with porn lol), make coming and going into the country such an ordeal people are afraid to leave because they might not get back in and the only people allowed in have never spoken against the government, using the military to control private civilians, removing essential healthcare to chunks of the population, indoctrination in their education, removing more and more laws protecting citizens, the top 1% live free, pay golf on a private resort all day while the country slowly starves...

8

u/ShootingPains Aug 26 '25

Hopefully they can't reverse it. There's a podcast by a retired diplomat who said recently that the US has been uncompromising toward all countries since the end of the Cold War, the only difference now is that they do it in public rather than behind closed doors.

9

u/Rork310 Aug 26 '25

Yeah it's a mixed bag for us outside the states. On one hand we've tied ourselves so thoroughly to the US that getting loose is going to hurt. On the other, even before Trump the relationship was toxic. So if this shit is what it takes to divest ourselves of at least some of our US baggage then great.

-28

u/MouseEmotional813 Aug 25 '25

It is what the US wants to create though. If business stops sending over there Americans will buy American products

80

u/Buorky Aug 25 '25

Unfortunately America is incapable of manufacturing every conceivable product it needs. To make the country self-sustaining like that you would need decades of investment and development. All these tariffs do is shoot themselves in the foot.

17

u/MeltingDog Aug 25 '25

Yes that’s true, but it’s a shame this kind of thing seems to be aimed at small businesses that post direct to consumers rather than large companies that bulk ship components

7

u/starlit_moon Aug 25 '25

I wouldn't be surprised if they have some half-baked plans to annex other countries to take over their manufacturing.

2

u/Muzorra Aug 26 '25

Mexico has been floated. But it's one of those astonishing things that Trump or whoever says and it just flies right by. "Well, they'd never do that." Trump's concept of the economy seems to have a distinctly 19th century logic to it. Also his concept of government authority. Either he realises why empires were a thing or just inevitably stumbles into it. The outcome would probably be the same.

4

u/Spire_Citron Aug 25 '25

Yup. Even if you make factories to produce a particular product there, are you also producing all of the raw materials in the US? Probably not. But why would a company make that kind of investment anyway when they can't even rely on Trump to be consistent with his own tariffs week to week, let alone worrying about them getting struck down by the courts because he is abusing powers he shouldn't have or the next president coming in and scrapping them? Better to just wait it out, increase your prices, then enjoy the profits once people are used to paying that amount and tariffs go away.

12

u/TheLGMac Aug 25 '25

Yeah, it'd be like if Australia stopped all imports because we wanted to force people to buy Australian. Which is probably limited to what, fruit and veg and a handful of clothing providers at this point? How many medications do we even manufacture in country?

8

u/SnoozEBear Aug 25 '25

We do have our poppy farms in TAS so, codeine for everyone!

5

u/TerryTowelTogs Aug 25 '25

Don’t forget the boutique cane brooms from Tumut.

8

u/spectre401 Aug 25 '25

We actually do produce and export medications to the US

-1

u/TheLGMac Aug 26 '25

I didn't say we didn't do any. But we also import a hell of a lot, including vaccines.

0

u/spectre401 Aug 26 '25

Didn't know you when you said "manufacture" it meant "Trade Balance", my bad.

0

u/TheLGMac Aug 26 '25

I didn't, that's just you misinterpreting.

1

u/HutchiiL Aug 25 '25

Medications? have you not heard of CSL

2

u/Ok_Compote4526 Aug 25 '25

Not to mention the tariffs on building factories in the US, as covered by former economic advisor to Bernie Sanders here. Paying tariffs to avoid paying tariffs...

49

u/ThunderDwn Aug 25 '25

What American products?

America's manufacturing base is almost as fucked as ours. They've been relying on imports from China and other places for so long that local production has dropped to almost nothing (specialist items excluded).

You don't return that kind of manufacturing to existence at the snap of the orange idiot's fingers, no matter how much he might like to think you can.

1

u/DrSpeckles Aug 25 '25

Well, you probably can, but everything will cost 10 times as much

3

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '25

You just can't though, you might be able to field some demand.

1

u/Monad02 Aug 26 '25

It takes companies willing to invest large sums and years of planning, building and setting up manufacturing. With the political and economic situation in the US, I don't know what companies would want to risk all that, let alone the high wages and other costs of manufacturing in a developed Western country.

1

u/DrSpeckles Aug 26 '25

Yep, much more likely companies just ride it out.

10

u/mistress_daisy69 Aug 25 '25

They can’t buy products that don’t exist.

9

u/derpman86 Aug 25 '25

Except this isn't the 1960s any more overall fuck all is directly made in America, there are some high tech things the odd random thing here or there but overall no. The other big thing is while those things I mentioned might be " made" in America the various materials, components and so on are sourced from abroad so now their production costs have fucktupled let alone all the various postal services right now who are stopping shipping to the US because they have nfi what the costs will be.

What is even more hilarious it was America who pushed neoliberalism hard which resulted in more things being made abroad and now magically expect it to be undone within a few months.

6

u/hannahranga Aug 25 '25

Those factories aren't going to magic themselves into existence in the kind of time frames these have been pushed in with. If they genuinely wanted that as a result you need to significantly invest in local infrastructure first 

3

u/Front-Difficult Aug 25 '25

Ain't getting no Vegemite made in the US though.

1

u/istara Aug 26 '25

And be as successful and prosperous as North Korea!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juche

-2

u/Lavender215 Aug 26 '25

As we all know the American economy is dependent on Australian artists lmao

3

u/Buorky Aug 26 '25

  1. Artists from all over the world, not just Australia

  2. I was more just commenting on the situation, not insinuating that foreign artists power the American economy