The US President Donald Trump on Friday, December 29 put the blame on Amazon for making the Postal Service "dumber and poorer" while making itself richer. Trump wanted the e-commerce behemoth to pay "much more" for its packages.
"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!" writes Trump on Twitter.
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The United States Postal Service (USPS) struggles financially year after year due to losses, which according to Trump should not have been the case considering that tens of millions of parcels that were shipped all over the country for the holiday season.
The package delivery business has seen huge growth in the last few years, at a time when there is a shift of communication channels over the internet that has made letters and envelopes antiquated.
The USPS runs independently within the federal government and does not get tax dollars for operating systems.
Trump is not in the position to determine postal rates as they are set by the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), an independent agency with commissioners chosen by the president from both political parties. In November, PRC increased package rates by nearly 2 per cent.
Amazon is owned and founded by Jeff Bezos, the richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg. Bezos owns The Washington Post which Trump has repeatedly put on the butt of criticism.
