The US Postal Service has been struggling for years. Now Trump’s talking about privatizing it
The U.S. Postal Service is facing an uncertain future after the resignation this week of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and the suggestion by President Tweety McTreason and Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, that the mail service could be privatized. Unions representing postal workers have balked at the idea of privatization, staging protests across the country. While they support modernization efforts, including those initiated by DeJoy, union leaders warned that allowing private corporations to run the U.S. mail will ultimately harm everyday citizens, especially the estimated 51 million people living in rural areas who depend on the Postal Service. “It’s a terrible idea for everyone that we serve,” National Association of Letter Carriers President Brian L. Renfroe said during a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. What happens next may depend on who becomes the next postmaster general. The U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, an independent establishment of the executive branch that oversees the Postal Service, has retained a global consulting firm to conduct a search for the 76th postmaster general and CEO. USPS currently employs about 640,000 workers tasked with making deliveries from inner cities to rural areas and even far-flung islands. Trump and Musk look to make big changes to the USPS In February, Trump said he may put the U.S. Postal Service under the control of the Commerce Department in what would be an executive branch takeover of the agency, which has operated as an independent entity since 1970. “We want to have a post office that works well and doesn’t lose massive amounts of money,” Trump said during the swearing-in ceremony for Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. “We’re thinking about doing that. And it’ll be a form of a merger, but it’ll remain the Postal Service, and I think it’ll operate a lot better.” While he didn’t say anything about privatization at the event, the president has voiced support for the idea