Deconstructing America

President Trump on Friday threatened to block an emergency loan to shore up the U.S. Postal Service unless it dramatically raised shipping prices on online retailers, an unprecedented move to seize control of the agency that analysts said could plunge its finances into a deeper hole.

“The Postal Service is a joke,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. To obtain a $10 billion line of credit Congress approved this month, “The post office should raise the price of a package by approximately four times,” he said.

[...]

“If they don’t raise the price of the service they give, which is a tremendous service, and they do a great job and the postal workers are fantastic — but this thing’s losing billions of dollars,” Trump said. “If they don’t raise the price I’m not signing anything, so they’ll raise the price so that they become maybe even profitable but so they lose much less money, okay? ”

  WaPo

So NO ONE will be sending packages through the post office, and they'll go bankrupt anyway.

Trump for years has alleged the Postal Service has charged too little for packages and personally pushed the head of the agency to charge far more to ship goods for big online retailers. Several administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said Trump’s criticism of Postal Service rates is rooted in a desire to hurt Amazon in particular. They have said that he fumes publicly and privately at Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, for news coverage that Trump believes is unfair.

[...]

“This is about as catastrophically stupid an idea that anyone could ever imagine,” said Mark Cohen, director of retail studies at Columbia University Business School. “As if anyone from Amazon to the local mom and pop delivery businesses would ever put up with a rate increase like that when they have alternatives.”

Jon Gold, the vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation, said in a statement that higher prices would “significantly hurt rural communities and small businesses in addition to USPS.”

“Retailers and consumers are heavily relying on USPS during the pandemic to deliver goods, as bricks-and-mortar stores are temporarily closed,” Gold said.

Trump’s proposal could hit Amazon harder than other shipping companies because it cannot as easily pass costs onto consumers. It also contracts more often with USPS for “last-mile” service — or deliveries between warehouses and homes.

“Raising rates like that on the post office, which is a thinly veiled attempt to get at Bezos, will merely result in Amazon and other shippers moving their business,” Cohen said. “It will kill the post office.”

Like so many things Trump does, any side effects mean nothing to him. As long as he can punish someone he wants to punish, collateral damage does not concern him.

“Raising rates like that on the post office, which is a thinly veiled attempt to get at Bezos, will merely result in Amazon and other shippers moving their business,” Cohen said. “It will kill the post office.”

[...]

[O]verall, the pandemic has worsened the agency’s finances as catalogues, real estate ads and other business mail have spiraled down. Postal officials say revenue has plunged by almost a third, and growth in package business has not been able to compensate for the other losses.

[...]

Lawmakers, postal unions and other entities that rely on the post office accused the president of exploiting the pandemic to punish his enemies.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the president was trying to starve the Postal Service so he and his allies can turn it over to a private company.

[...]

“[Trump] is interposing his own flawed judgment for a very complex, technical enterprise that serves at least a $2 trillion industry,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), who chairs the House subcommittee in charge of postal oversight. “It’s one of the most important services in America. It serves every business and every household and it has a workforce of 630,000 people who put themselves at risk every day on behalf of the American population. And he’s willing to risk it all because he’s got a bugaboo in his mind that Jeff Bezos and Amazon are getting a good deal.”

[...]

“Now, when Americans need affordable and reliable package delivery service more than ever, Congress must fight to guarantee emergency relief for the Postal Service and stop this package tax,” [former Army secretary John McHugh, chairman of the Package Coalition advocacy group, said.]

Indeed. And we need to flip the Senate in November. ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.