a Group III country, alongside countries like Mexico and Turkey that had similar GDP per capita. As a result, China paid lower terminal dues than the United States. The Donald Trump administration complained that it was "being forced to heavily subsidize small parcels coming into our country." On 17 October 2018, the United States announced that it would withdraw from the UPU in one year and self-declare the rates it charged to other postal services. The Universal Postal Union responded in May 2019 by calling, for only the third time in its history, an Extraordinary Congress for 24–26 September 2019. The members voted down a proposal submitted by the United States and Canada, which would have allowed immediate self-declaration of terminal dues. The UPU then unanimously passed a Franco-German compromise to allow self-declared terminal dues of up to 70% of the domestic postage rate and increase the UPU terminal dues by 119–164%, phasing in both changes from 2021 to 2025. In addition, countries receiving more than 75,000 tonnes of mail—currently only the United States—could opt in to accelerated self-declared terminal dues on 1 July 2020 in return for an $8 million annual "contribution" to the UPU for five years. Trump adviser Peter Navarro declared that the agreement "more than achieved the President's goal," but he denied that the United States was "buying" the deal with its "contribution". UPU Director Siva Somasundram hailed the agreement as "a landmark decision for multilateralism and the Union." Standards Standards are important prerequisites for effective postal operations and for interconnecting the global network. The UPU's Standards Board develops and maintains a growing number of international standards to improve the exchange of postal-related information between postal operators. It also promotes the compatibility of UPU and international postal initiatives. The organization works closely with postal handling organizations, customers, suppliers and other partners, including various international organizations. The Standards Board ensures that coherent regulations are developed in areas such as electronic data interchange (EDI), mail encoding, postal forms and meters. UPU standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in Part V of the "General information on UPU Standards" and are published by the UPU International Bureau in accordance with Part VII of that publication. Member countries All United Nations member states are allowed to become members of the UPU. A non-member state of the United Nations may also become a member if two-thirds of the UPU