WASHINGTON, Oct 17 - The United States will begin withdrawing from the Universal Postal Union, a United Nations treaty that lowered rates for foreign postal deliveries in the United States, senior White House officials said on Wednesday.

The White House said the treaty enables foreign postal services to take advantage of cheap shipments to the United States, especially China, creating an unfair cost advantage over US companies that ship goods, and hurting the income of the US Postal Service.

"People are getting hurt in this country by an unfair system," one official told reporters on a conference call.

The move is the latest by President Donald Trump's administration to distance itself from international multi-lateral organizations and accompanying policies that it feels are hurtful to the United States.

The White House will seek to renegotiate the terms of the treaty even as it begins the process to withdraw, the officials said.

One official said the system allowed for a 40-70 percent discount on small packages coming in from China to the United States compared to what it would cost to send them domestically, costing $300 million.

"It's cheaper to mail small packages from New York to Beijing than it is from San Francisco to New York," the official said. "That just obviously is a major economic distortion ...

that affects trade flows and affects American businesses, and that's what we're trying to fix here."

UPU did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reuters