Summary
Donald Trump plans to take control of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) by firing its governing board and placing it under the Commerce Department, led by Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Experts warn the move likely violates federal law, as USPS was established as an independent entity under the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act.
The Postal Board, in an emergency meeting, has hired legal counsel and gave instructions to sue the White House if the president removed board members or altered the agency’s independent status.
Trump has long criticized the USPS and has floated privatization, sparking backlash over concerns of political interference and mail disruptions.
Not just mail.
Most (all?) of the package delivery services rely heavily on USPS for last mile deliveries. So expect UPS and Amazon to be sending people to the golf course to scream at fuckface
amazon is drooling at the opportunity to privatise all of american mail
There isn’t money in physical mail and cranking that up will just push people even farther into digital correspondence.
Amazon has spent years (well over a decade now?) trying to cut out the USPS. The reality is that they can’t. Their gig delivery driver model works for some regions but not for “rural america”. And there is a lot of money in being the only lifeline many households have while being able to offload the high cost low frequency deliveries to a different company (USPS).
Five or ten years ago? Yeah, amazon wanted that. Now? It is actively not in their interest and would hurt their business model for the USPS to die.
Destroying the USPS has almost nothing to do with “good business” or even privatizing it. It is all about controlling information. It kills vote by mail almost instantly but it also removes the ability for informational mailers to be sent out. And an isolated populace is a stupid populace and a stupid populace is a republican populace.
Its the same reason social media was so compromised. Because then all the useful idiots tell people to “just unplug and enjoy your day to day life” and then they never hear about protests or human rights violations or…
They don’t give a fuck about the last mile deliveries. Without USPS keeping prices low, they will be able to rank up what they charge. It’s a dream for them.
Last mile is what let’s them sell. If people can’t buy online they go back to brick and mortar and start questioning if that shoe horn is really worth a twenty minutes drive.
Amazon needs shipping prices to stay low. If they go up, Amazon either needs to reduce their margins to pay for it or they will be less competitive against physical shops. Either way their profits will take a hit.
They might be counting on it pushing more people to subscribe to Prime to keep cheaper shipping. They have their own distribution system so they can do the last mile if they want.
Assuming the market can bear it, that is. And goods are expensive enough as it is, even without import tariffs.
amazon does a lot of their own now. even to my little shit town. nearest fulfillment center is in another state, 2 1/2 hrs away.
They are terrible at it, compared to my mailman or UPS.
Not with UPS anymore. That agreement ended recently.