In a sudden Thursday evening executive order, President Trump ordered an evaluation of the Postal Service’s finances, after weeks of railing against Amazon’s use of the service as bilking the taxpayers.
The order tells the task force to examine USPS’s “unsustainable financial path” and to “conduct a thorough evaluation of the operations and finances of the USPS.”
The order does not mention Amazon explicitly, but Mr. Trump has repeatedly called the online-retail giant’s arrangement with USPS a money loser.
According to the New York Times, Mr. Trump’s advisers and the Postal Service have told him these claims are not accurate.
Nevertheless, Mr. Trump persisted.
In December, he said on Twitter that USPS was “dumber and poorer” and losing “many billions of dollars a year” by not “charging MUCH MORE” to Amazon and other shippers.
Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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