The US blocks parcels from China as Trump's tariffs hit.

Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service.

I'm Leanna Byrne. Good morning.

The US Postal Service has stopped accepting parcels from China and Hong Kong,

just as new tariffs from President Trump kick in.

Let's hear from Katia Dermitrava,

that's Bloomberg's Asia Economics correspondent in Hong Kong,

who's watching a Chinese finance ministry press briefing

as the news broke. Hello.

Hello.

So you were watching this meeting.

Give us the sense of what it was like watching that

while the announcement it was being

made, essentially? Well, this one started about 30 minutes late, and the answers were incredibly

brief. I mean, there were more seats filled than usual on the reporter side, and yet all the

questions asked about tariffs and Trump and the trade

war and USPS and all the things that have happened in the past 72 hours, basically, were

either deflected or there were very brief answers or reiteration from what we've heard before.

So what exactly was asked, and even if the answers were brief,

what exactly was said in response to them? Well, the first question usually goes to state media,

and it was about the lunar new year and how good the spending was and travel reached a record. So it was a

pretty positive first question, but very quickly, we actually veered towards tariffs.

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