Economic Policy Institute: The EPI has put together a helpful FAQ sheet about the Postal Service.
What has the president said about the Postal Service?
The Washington Post reported recently that President Trump planned to fire the governing board of the U.S. Postal Service and merge the agency with the Commerce Department, prompting the board to seek legal counsel. A White House spokesperson later denied that an executive order was in the works (though it would take an act of Congress to strip away the independence of the Postal Service and make these types of drastic changes).
This isn’t the first time the president has floated the possibility of making massive changes to the popular agency.
The president’s focus on the Postal Service initially stemmed from a feud with Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, whom the president accused of getting a sweetheart deal from the Postal Service. Though Bezos has since mended fences with the president, anti-government think tanks working closely with Trump and his administration (including the Heritage Foundation) have long supported privatizing the Postal Service.
During the first Trump administration, a White House report proposed cutting postal services and shifting legacy costs for retiree benefits to the federal government to make the Postal Service profitable before privatizing it. A later task force headed by then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin downplayed overt privatization but proposed cutting services and ending postal workers’ collective bargaining rights.
In December 2024 during the transition period, the Post reported that the president-elect had discussed privatizing the Postal Service with members of his transition team, including Howard Lutnick, his nominee for commerce secretary. In addition to reportedly being open to privatizing the Postal Service, Lutnick has floated the idea of having it conduct the census and administer Social Security, as if the Census Bureau and Social Security field offices could simply be shuttered and the work reassigned to existing postal workers and facilities (see interview here, starting at 11:10).
Who’s in charge now?
The Postal Service is overseen by a bipartisan board of governors whose members appoint a Postmaster General to run daily operations. In April 2020, the board’s vice chair resigned in protest over the Trump administration’s attempts to politicize the Postal Service. Louis DeJoy was then appointed Postmaster General. He was a Trump campaign donor and fundraiser whose business interests posed potential conflicts of interest with the Postal Service. DeJoy recently announced plans to retire.