> Export restriction rules “essentially deputize FedEx to police the contents of the millions of packages it ships daily even though doing so is a virtually impossible task, logistically, economically, and in many cases, legally,” it said in a filing.
Then don't export? Leave it to another company willing to take that risk and inconvenience, and price international shipping in accordance with that risk and inconvenience.
Why should the burden of these restrictions and policing falls upon a private company? If the government decides to apply additional restrictions under the pretense of national security, then it should foot the bill.
All taxpayers. We're the ones indirectly responsible for the government that imposes the unreasonably trade-disrupting regulations, and it's in everyone's interest that we be able to export smoothly (not just that of the exporters themselves).
All taxpayers should. They chose the government, and they're responsible for it. If you don't like footing the bill for a crappy policy, then do a better job voting.
All taxpayers should, because the entire US economy would collapse without cost-effective export shipping. Also, the issue is less of who pays and more of the strict liability. I don't think FedEx would mind implementing commercially reasonable measure to check high-risk packages--like customs does--but the issue is that they are now in the business of interpreting the law, and if the government disagrees they get in trouble.
It's impossible for a carrier to check every package, nor is it legal in many cases. CBP can't check every vehicle at every point of entry, no one can.
You can make whatever regulations you want, but some impossible things are impossible.
They could in fact actually open every box to check the contents. 15 million is not some unfathomably large number of boxes per day. It would increase the cost of shipping across the borders that require that additional checking, by whatever amount is necessary to hire and organize staff to do that checking. That increase in cost could be shifted to the senders, and in turn the volume of packages would decrease. Trade would not "shut down," but it would decrease.
That's just from one carrier. I'm amazed someone is arguing that this is a practical task instead of asking if these tariffs are really worthwhile or if there are better ways to do this than mass privacy violations and checking every piece of mail sent in the United States
I don't personally think it's worth it, no. To me, though, that's a different issue than "it can't be done."
"Yes, we can do A. The likely result of this action, however, is X Y Z." I prefer to present the situation like this rather than short-circuiting via "I know we are unwilling to accept X Y Z," and so therefore, "we can't do A."
it's not pedantic. there is a very wide chasm between impractical, which can quickly become practical given an appropriate change of conditions -- see: the entire history of computer development, and impossible.
You're being snarky, but you are totally correct. The US could certainly just shut down all exports, and pretty quickly all trade would cease, and the economy would totally implode. It's completely doable, if that's what we want to do to ourselves. Lately, we Americans seem to really like shooting ourselves in the foot, so this would just be more of that, except with a bigger gun.
It isn't. It's completely ineffective and a waste of resources.
Even given a highly inefficient but effective way of preventing goods from being shipped directly from the US to China, what's stopping anyone from shipping them from the US to Vietnam or Thailand and then from there to China? Or the same for corporations rather than countries?
There is no point in doing something that costs you more resources to attempt to implement than it costs the opposition to successfully evade.
Then don't export? Leave it to another company willing to take that risk and inconvenience, and price international shipping in accordance with that risk and inconvenience.