Category: Industry News

• FedEx sued the U.S. government, saying it should not be held liable if it inadvertently shipped products that violated a Trump administration ban on exports to some Chinese companies.
• The move came after FedEx reignited Chinese ire over its business practices when a package containing a Huawei phone sent to the U.S. was returned last week to its sender in Britain, in what FedEx said was an “operational error.”
• FedEx’s suit and delivery error come against a backdrop of increasing tension between the world’s two biggest economies.
• The U.S. and China have been engaged in a trade fight for nearly a year on issues such as tariffs, subsidies, technology, regulations, and cybersecurity.

On June 23, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) implements a pricing change that subjects more parcels to rates pegged to their dimensions instead of their actual weight. What impact, if any, this has on the USPS shipper universe won’t be known for months.

Under the new policy, USPS will, for the first time, price parcels which measure more than 1 cubic feet – or 1,728 cubic inches in multiplied length, width and girth – and which move less than 600 miles by the higher of either its “dimensional” or actual weight. Currently, all parcels moving less than 600 miles are exempt from dimensional pricing. Also on June 23, each parcel measuring more than 1 cubic foot and moving more than 601 miles will be priced using a new “divisor” that calculates dimensional pricing, better known in the industry as “DIM.” The divisor will be reduced to 166 from 194.

USPS will not apply dimensional on any parcels measuring less than 1 cubic foot.