But this is just a discussion about offshoring.
We don't like it and were opposed to it for decades because it cost Americans jobs--typically higher-wage lower-skill jobs. But also because the labor conditions "there" (wherever "there" was at the time) were crappier.
At the same time, we love offshoring when we do it. Live in Tucson and head to Nogales for cheaper prescriptions, dental care, etc.? Wonderful.
I've bought things from China a time or two; my wife regularly receives a package or two a week from China. In my case, shipping from China was less expensive than shipping from San Francisco. She admits that she can get the same thing from US providers and sometimes manufacturers, but not only is the price from China just barely undercutting the US prices, but the shipping makes China the clear winner. The only difference is patience--and she can afford to wait a week or two longer. And she's clear on that point--the difference in cost between the US and China is immense, and she knows that the Chinese manufacturers are still raking in money from their lower labor costs. It's the postal union rates that make the real difference.
This is distinct from M-bag rates, which are stunning in their cheapness (and length of shipping time), but which is effectively media mail for large lumps of paper pulp with printing on it.
Contrast that with what I just got today from amazon.fr. The shipping from there was a lot more than anything but overnight shipping in the US. I priced things in the US to compare, and found I could get them in the US--at much higher prices. But factoring in shipping, and the French stuff was still a lot more expensive for the same shipping times. The only thing making the French-sold things cheaper was ordering them in late August and getting them in late September. (It was the same when I bought some of Simon Fischer's works from his UK site--could buy them here, but patience = $.)
Now, offshoring is a way for an underdeveloped country to bring in business, and the postal tariffs reflect this, and the state of affairs from quite a few decades back. The Chinese shipping rates aren't that much lower than rates I've run into from Beirut or Teheran (I have this thing about language study, hard to get good materials for Arabic and Farsi at the local Barnes and Noble). But China's come from behind where those countries are to clearly significantly ahead.
Increase the postal rates to China, and some Americans will pay for the stuff they can't get here; others will suddenly find that buying domestically (or from Indonesia) is a more frugal option.
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