President-elect Donald Trump is looking to privatize the U.S. Postal Service, according to a report from The Washington Post. Sources familiar with the development told the publication that Trump discussed the matter with Commerce Secretary pick Howard Lutnick.
After being informed of USPS’s losses, Trump said the government should not subsidize the entity.
USPS reported a net loss of $9.5 billion in fiscal year 2024. In 2023, USPS lost $6.5 billion.
Trump previously urged the USPS to hand over its “rate-setting, personnel decisions, labor relations and managing relationships with its largest clients” to the Treasury Department, the Post noted.
Casey Mulligan, a top economist in the first Trump administration, told the outlet that the “government is slow, slow, slow — decades slow on adopting new ways of doing things, and there’s a lot of [other] carrier services that became legal in the ’70s that are doing things so much better with increased volumes and reduced costs.” Mulligan added that the incoming Trump administration should “finish the job.”
USPS said in a statement to the Post that it is “already engaged in an initiative to ensure that we can provide our customers with a high level of service to every delivery address in the nation at least 6-days-a-week in an efficient and financially sustainable fashion as required by law.”
In 2022, the U.S. Senate provided about $50 billion in financial relief to USPS. The vote passed 79-19.
Reuters reported at the time that the bill removed requirements for USPS pre-fund retiree health benefits while mandating that future retirees enroll in Medicare.
