By Norma Connolly,President Donald Trump

Copyright caymancompass

The Cayman Islands Postal Service expects to resume sending parcels and registered mail to the United States from later this week.

Late last month, the postal service halted delivery of all mail to the US, and although it is now accepting letters and other documents to send to the US, no other any items can yet be sent via the mail.

The halt on goods being posted from Cayman, and many other countries worldwide, to the US came after an executive order issued by President Donald Trump came into effect on 29 Aug. That order eliminated a longstanding ‘de minimis’ exemption that applied to all packages valued at less than US$800 entering the US duty free. The exemption now only applies to items worth under $100.

The change has meant that the Cayman Islands Postal Service has had to rework its procedures on outgoing mail to the US, Postmaster General Sheena Glasgow explained.

“Most of countries in the world, not just Cayman, have had to suspend parcels containing goods that are going to the United States while they put in place procedures that will comply with the requirements of the executive order,” she said.

Those procedures, which include refundable deposits and an additional fee to send goods to the US, are being rolled out, and the local postal service is currently testing its revamped systems, using two parcels of goods bound for the States.

“At this point, they are still with us,” Glasgow said. “But we were able to test the front end of our procedures, from customer service to mail operations in the back. At this time, what’s holding up dispatching them to US is some small IT electronic advanced-data issues that are being resolved.”

Simultaneously, internal training of postal employees, including counter and mail operations staff, is under way to familiarise them with the new procedures.

The United States tariff regime has impacted just about every facet of operation for the Cayman Islands Postal Service, from customer-facing counter staff to accounts and legal, Glasgow said, “because everyone has a role in dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s”.

A team of 15 people has been working to get the processes in place to resume the mail service to the US, she added.

EMS to resume in smaller scale initially

She estimated that, by the end of next week, post offices in Cayman will start accepting goods through its Express Mail Service, or EMS, from its existing bulk-service customers, as there are already shipping procedures in place for them.

“They present the best opportunity for the postal service to resume on a smaller scale while we continue to make sure that our processes will operate seamlessly going forward,” Glasgow said.

Then, in the following week, the plan is to start accepting EMS mail from all customers wishing to send packages to the US.

‘US tariff regime is here to stay’

At a Universal Postal Union Congress in Dubai, at which representatives of postal services from around the world currently are gathered, the US tariffs have been a major topic of discussion, and delegates were briefed on the latest developments, Glasgow noted.

“The short answer is the US tariff regime is here to stay,” she said. “It’s not going anywhere.”

At the congress, it was also communicated that other countries are considering implementing similar tariffs.

“As postmaster general, my ultimate goal is when the postal service resumes sending items … to the United States, we have everything sort out in terms of the processes,” she said that it would be “frustrating and aggravating” for both customers and staff if the new system “were to start and stop, start and stop” if seamless procedures were not in place.

“So, we are taking a slow but sure, controlled, managed approach to resuming service, but I am happy to say the light is at the end of the tunnel and we are getting there,” she said.

New procedures

Customers sending goods to the US will be expected to prepare an accurate declaration, which must include the following:

A short but accurate description and quantity of each type of merchandise in your package (for example: 4 cotton T-shirts);
The value of the goods, including the currency in which the value is declared, (for example: CI$60)
The country of origin for each of the items in the package. (for example: China)

The Cayman Islands Postal Service notes that the majority of the goods/merchandise in the outbound packages posted from Cayman are not made, manufactured nor assembled here. Therefore, the country of origin for most goods posted in Cayman is not the Cayman Islands, so the true country of origin must be declared on the customs form.

To prepare declarations, the postal service is strongly recommending customers use the EAD Customs Mobile app, which can be downloaded for free from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.

The service also noted that, in addition to normal postage, the Cayman Islands Postal Service will collect:

The estimated tariffs due to US Customs;
A refundable deposit equal to 50% of the estimated tariff; and
A processing fee of CI$6.

The refundable deposit will be held until US Customs has assessed the item. If US Customs assess a tariff higher than the Cayman Islands Postal Service has estimated based on the information a customer provided, the additional amount paid to US Customs will be deducted from the deposit and any unused portion of the deposit will be refunded the sender. The most likely reason this would happen is the incorrect country of origin was declared or the value declared was not accepted as a fair retail value by US Customs.