President Trump doubled down on his claim that online retailer Amazon is costing the United States Postal Service billions of dollars in a Tuesday morning tweet, insisting that American taxpayers are paying the price in an unfair deal.
"I am right," Trump insisted, after his Monday tweet on the same topic was scrutinized. "P.O. leaders don't have a clue (or do they?)!" His claims were widely debunked after he implied that Amazon was to blame for brick-and-mortar stores closing and the Postal Service losing "A FORTUNE." The USPS did, in fact, lose $2.7 billion in 2017, reports PolitiFact, but not because it delivered packages for Amazon. On the contrary, parcel delivery deals with companies like Amazon accounted for $7 billion of the $19.5 billion in revenue last year.
Over the weekend, Trump tweeted that the USPS loses $1.50 on average for each Amazon delivery. PolitiFact notes that USPS does charge below market rates for deliveries, but that it does so to beat competitors, since the service is visiting most houses every day regardless of parcel deliveries.
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The USPS could stand to make more money off Amazon, but it's certainly not losing a fortune because of the e-commerce giant. What's more, some of the service's longstanding issues, such as mail delays and pension payments, could be addressed if Trump appointed officials to the USPS Board of Governors, NPR reports. Nine of the 11 spots on the board are empty, even after a bipartisan group of senators implored Trump to fill the seats to address the problems within the USPS that really do exist.
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