The United States Postal Service (USS) has been criticised by President Donald Trump over the the past few months. Specifically, he has levelled the charge that Amazon and other retailers (but he has singled out Amazon individually on several different occasions) benefit from the USPS effectively giving subsidised parcel rates from the state owned national provider to big brands.
He has urged USPS to raise prices to better cover costs and also ordered an investigation into USPS’s finances. We’ve written about this before: President Trump pressed USPS to double Amazon delivery charges. USPS has vigorously denied that they make a loss on parcels. The USPS has in aggregate posted recent losses but the package business contributed $7 billion to the United States Postal Service bottom line last year, according to their recent filings.
But now it looks like the stand-off is going to reach a new level. The report that Trump ordered into the USPS operation back in April is expected to be released this week and a group of retailers have joined forces to talk up the positive aspects of USPS and how it helps American businesses. It’s billed as the Package Coalition and includes big names like Amazon, Walmart and Target and is organised by the National Retail Federation (NRF).
Here are the realities of the Postal Service’s packaged business: It is one of the very few bright spots of the U.S. Postal Service. All of our members provide solid financial footing to the Postal Service. The last thing you want to talk about is disrupting one of the few bright spots of the Postal Service.
– John McHugh, chairman of The Package Coalition
Depending on the nature of the report re USPS to the President, it seems like we’ll be hearing more from Trump in the weeks to come and, perhaps see the next chapter in this war of words and tweets unfold.
4 Responses
I’m surprise that Trump hasn’t insisted that China pays it’s fair share of postal charges, under the current system they are classed as a third world Country and as such every 1st World Country postal service has to carry their post at a subsides rate, therefore, USPS, Royal Mail etc etc subsides every packet and parcel from China, hence why they can ship item for 99p from China and still make money!!!
Maybe someone suggested that Trump learnt how the UPU Terminal Dues system operates and he is still trying to work out what P G and E formats are ?
I see! The USPS is not loosing money on parcels? Yeah right! So that’s why the USPS buildings are falling apart and they are using the oldest vehicles in the industry? Because Amazon is helping USPS? This is just what they want us to believe!
Also who benefits from 99cents chinese goods flooding this country? Not us! If you want to ship the same item to china it will cost you $15!! What a big BS!