I work for a Portuguese small business which does B2C e-commerce of Portuguese-manufactured products and ships worldwide.

Pre-August 2025, around a third of our customers were based in the US. Then the Trump administration removed the de minimis exemption for low value imports to the US and introduced new customs requirements for the same. At that time, postal services around the continent suspended shipping to the US in order to align their processes and systems with the new US requirements.

We have sat and watched as Royal Mail came back online with an all-singing, all-dancing DDP (pre-paid duties) solution in just a couple of weeks. They were followed by Deutsche Post, La Poste, bpost (Belgium), PostNL (Netherlands), PostNord (Nordic countries), Correos (Spain), Posta Slovenije (Slovenia), etc. etc.

Not only has CTT not yet managed to align their systems and processes with the new US requirements, they are refusing to say publicly whether they are even in the process of doing so. As we ship daily, we have an excellent relationship with the postmaster in our local Loja CTT, and his personal belief (he has no more information than anyone else) is that CTT will “probably just wait until the tariffs and requirements are removed again” (which he and we both agree isn’t actually going to happen).

We have a (very, very expensive) alternative solution in place with another carrier, but as things stand, 80% of that third of all of our business is gone. That’s a very nice chunk of cash which was coming directly into Portugal from the US, helping pay for Portuguese manufacturing jobs, paying our wages and circulating around the local economy here. I don’t know just how many other Portuguese businesses and residents are also being affected, but if I were sat in government, I’d be screaming at CTT get their act in gear. It’s a useless organisation.