President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to deny a loan for the U.S. Postal Service if it doesn’t raise prices for delivering packages.
Speaking in the Oval Office as he signed a new round of coronavirus stimulus measures into law, Trump called the agency a “joke,” and said it should raise package-delivery prices by four times.
“The post office should raise the price of the packages to the companies, not to the people, to the companies, and if they did that it would be a whole different story,” Trump said.
The Washington Post recently reported that the White House wants to force changes at the Postal Service as part of the terms of a $10 billion loan from the Treasury Department.
As the Post notes, Trump frequently claims that higher package rates on internet shipping companies like Amazon AMZN, +0.44% could ease the Postal Service’s financial troubles.
Trump has long been critical of Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. He has complained that the rate charged to the company makes “Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer.”
Originally Published on MarketWatch
