Postal traffic into the United States plunged by more than 80% after the Trump administration ended a tariff exemption for low-cost imports, the United Nations postal agency said Saturday.

The Universal Postal Union says it has started rolling out new measures that can help postal operators around the world calculate and collect duties, or taxes, after the U.S. eliminated the so-called “de minimis exemption” for lower-value parcels.

Eighty-eight postal operators have told the UPU that they have suspended some or all postal services to the United States until a solution is implemented with regard to U.S.-bound parcels valued at $800 or less, which had been the cutoff for imported goods to escape customs charges.

“The global network saw postal traffic to the U.S. come to a near-halt after the implementation of the new rules on Aug. 29, 2025, which for the first time placed the burden of customs duty collection and remittance on transportation carriers or U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency-approved qualified parties,” the UPU said in a statement.

The UPU said information exchanged between postal operators through its electronic network showed traffic from its 192 member countries — nearly all the world countries — had fallen 81% on Aug. 29, compared to a week earlier.

The Bern, Switzerland-based agency said the “major operational disruptions” have occurred because airlines and other carriers indicated they weren’t willing or able to collect such duties, and foreign postal operators had not established a link to CBP-qualified companies.

Before the measure took effect, the postal union sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to express concerns about its impact.

The de minimis exemption has existed in some form since 1938, and the administration says the exemption has become a loophole that foreign businesses exploit to evade tariffs and criminals use to get drugs into the U.S.

Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs now require vetting and are subject to their origin country’s applicable tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.

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While the change applies to the products of every country, U.S. residents will not have to pay duties on incoming gifts valued at up to $100, or on up to $200 worth of personal souvenirs from trips abroad, according to the White House.

The UPU said its members had not been given enough time or guidance to comply with the procedures outlined in the executive order U.S. President Donald Trump signed on July 30 to eliminate the duty-free eligibility of low-value goods.

Korean boy group BE:MAX has canceled its Saturday St. Paul appearance because of visa issues, the group said on social media.

They were slated to be the headlining band at what organizers are touting as Minnesota’s first K-pop convention at St. Paul RiverCentre beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday.

KPopMinneCon will feature music performances, dances, influencers, beauty and food vendors and merchandise. Performers include Ted Park and influencer Beom Han is also scheduled to appear. The event will celebrate the Korean pop music community in the Midwest, according to presenter MNKPopConnect.

The band posted on social media that when they arrived at the airport to fly to the United States they had to cancel the trip “due to the unexpected cancellation of our visa.”

It was unclear Saturday morning whether the entire festival would be canceled, however stories on its social media account after the announcement showed the festival organizers were preparing for attendees still.

The convention was advertised as offering an all-in-one ticket covering both entry and concert access, with flexible in-and-out privileges. Activities include panels, dance challenges, and Korean and Asian food trucks serving a variety of cuisines.

BE:MAX was scheduled to perform at 8 p.m.

Meet and greets run from 3-6 p.m. and include performers Ted Park, Alan Z, Lucid Lee (LUC:ID), Ramiro Brave and Mimi Yang.

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Amy Lindgren

Have you been thinking about taking a second job to supplement your income? Maybe you already juggle jobs and gigs in what some people call “portfolio work.”  If so, you might be a good candidate for a different approach to multiple streams of income.

Instead of pursuing a random selection of work opportunities, what about building two career paths simultaneously?

The reasons for doubling up could include the classic moonlighting justifications: Extra cash and something to fall back on.

But the real difference when you’re switching from a gig mindset to career mode is the commitment you’re making to both areas of work. It could be that you love both fields, or you want to build experience in both before choosing one. Or, it could just be that you don’t know any better.

That last one belongs to me and probably isn’t true of other people. More on that in a minute.

Whatever your reasons, dual-careerists face some decisions. For example, how would you divide your time between the two pursuits? Among the variations to consider are situations where one career takes the most time, or one is intermittent, or both are part-time or perhaps seasonal.

In any case, most people wouldn’t last long holding down two full-time jobs, at least not in two different professions. (Remember that the remote workers you hear about with multiple full-time jobs generally perform the same task in each one.)

Another question is how to build two career paths simultaneously. To keep this from becoming too theoretical, I’m going to use my own example. In my case, the two paths both involve self-employment, which brings us back to “not knowing any better.”

When I was young and goofy (goofier, anyway), I believed the statistics about business startup. In the mid 1980s, the number touted was something like, “Three out of five businesses will fail in the first year.”

If I’m going to fail at least three times, I thought, why not speed things up and launch businesses two at a time? I had already started and closed two businesses sequentially (house cleaning followed by house painting), which had taken three years altogether. Now I would start the third and fourth businesses simultaneously, on the assumption that one would probably fail but the other might make it.

What I didn’t count on was that both businesses would survive. Having gained enormously more insight, I now know their survival was rooted in choosing work I’m suited for. Where the first two businesses were one-person manual labor services, the third and fourth businesses were a résumé typing service that quickly morphed into a career-strategies company and a writing service that I have kept as a one-person operation.

No guarantees, but if I’d operated from my strengths at the beginning, I might not have business failure stories to tell. But then I might have missed the fun of following two paths at once, not to mention the rewards.

If this idea appeals to you, or you’re already doing something similar, these tips might save you time or mis-steps.

• 1. Choose two careers that are compatible. A career that requires your presence doesn’t pair well with one that demands travel, for example.

• 2. Keep the paths distinct. Rather than two quite similar careers, look for two that suit different sides of your personality. This helps you avoid burnout while also providing that “something to fall back on” if things go south.

• 3. Consider a self-employment / staff combo. Following two careers is already challenging; doing them both as an employee could add messy logistics. If at least one of your paths is under your own control, you’ll be able to flex better. On the other hand, I maybe wouldn’t advise two self-employment tracks. Steady income and benefits are also nice.

• 4. Take stock frequently. If one path feels like a slog, give yourself permission to demote it to a side interest.

• 5. Let one career dominate. One might take more time or require more financial resources. Or, one might be your “public” profession while you pursue the other in a quiet manner. This imbalance will let you breathe and reflect more on each path, rather than pushing both forward at the same pace. It also helps financially if one doesn’t demand expensive space or marketing.

• 6. Grow your skills in both careers. Building skills and expertise requires some combination of ongoing training, networking, reading, professional memberships and more. That’s what defines these paths as careers and not just side hustles or gigs. It’s also what makes them rewarding, both personally and professionally.

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Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.

The current popular sentiment, expressed uniformly as the result of profound sadness, suggests that we live in the Minnesota that we no longer recognize. A hateful young fellow with guns took care of that when he fired wildly through the stained glass windows of Annunciation Catholic Church and in South Minneapolis on a beautiful morning when the Annunciation schoolkids were assembled for their first school Mass of the year.

Bullets flew and glass shattered. Two children were killed, Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10, and many others injured. The shooter killed himself.

It was such an egregious act of evil that it transcended speechlessness and almost instantly compelled a new and useful response, “pray with your feet.” I took it to mean hand-wringing is over. Hoping for the best at the next school Mass is over. Praying with your feet means to move, to advance, to take, literally, steps to make sure innocents are not gunned down in church or school by a madman.

And perhaps a Minnesota we do recognize has responded by a particularly Minnesota curiosity. We all knew the affected, if not personally, then by the parish underground party hotline. It’s not even exclusive to Catholics. It’s just the way things are around here. In the Twin Cities, people are known by the parish they belong to. It’s an uncanny part of initial conversations.

“Where did you grow up?”

“South Minneapolis.”

“Annunciation?”

“Well, it would have been Annunciation, but the dividing line was 50th Street. I was north of 50th, so I went to Visitation.”

Everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody whose niece goes to Annunciation. Everybody knows somebody whose uncle went to Annunciation, aunt, grandmother, wife’s best friend’s cousin. The same thing happens in St. Paul, with Nativity, or St. Luke’s (I don’t care what they call it now, I went to St. Luke’s) or St. Agnes or Holy Spirit or St. Casimir’s.

During golf the other day, a guy said, unasked, “my mom and my uncle went to Annunciation. My grandmother on my mom’s side was the church secretary.”

“That was your school?”

“I was north of 50th, went to Visitation.”

Everybody knows those Annunciation kids because all you have to do is look next door, or across the street, or under the roof of the house of a kid you used to have. And there they are, posing for the first-day-of-school picture on the stoop, smiling, brand-new shoes and uniform shirts, one of them pointing at the camera as if to say, “Here I come!”

Every single parishioner in the Twin Cities, in the state, is now enlisted in what we might call the Fletcher Merkel or Harper Moyski security team, praying with their feet. The idea that the government will prevent shootings in the future is preposterous. We don’t need their boilerplate resolutions, or their grandstanding or their empty promises. In fact, get out of our way. This is our problem. Praying with your feet will be the answer. In fact, it is already happening here. Last week at Mass, there were quite a few heads on swivels. That started before Mass and continued until the doors were locked. Another Annunciation cannot happen and people can no longer just hope for the best.

Just days after the sadness at Annunciation, the feeling outside the church of doing something was palpable, not the endless tyranny of hoping somebody else does something. No, we will act. We are alert.

We will pray with our feet.

We owe it to all those kids who point at the camera and say with their bravado and their innocence and grace, “Here we come!”

That can be a Minnesota we’ll be happy to recognize.

Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic” podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.

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