President Trump said on Friday that he was considering merging the U.S. Postal Service, an independent federal agency that has wrestled with financial challenges and service lapses, with the Commerce Department.
Mr. Trump was responding to a reporter’s question about an article in The Washington Post saying that he was preparing to dissolve the leadership of the agency and place it under the control of the Commerce Department.
The Postal Service is managed by a bipartisan board of governors — appointed to fixed terms by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Of the nine governors on the board, no more than five of the nine may belong to the same political party, and the group comes together to elect the agency’s leader, the postmaster general.
Mr. Trump confirmed his interest in the merger in remarks at the swearing-in ceremony for Howard Lutnick, the new commerce secretary, on Friday. Mr. Trump said that he intended to keep the Postal Service “a very similar way” but that he was considering a merger or possibly downsizing the agency.
“Whether it is a merger,” Mr. Trump said, “or just using some of the very talented people that we have elsewhere so it does not lose so much — it is losing a tremendous amount of money.”
A recent report by the Postal Service said that it had “recorded $87 billion in financial losses over the last 14 years and failed to meet service standards.” The report also noted the service’s struggles during the pandemic, when a dramatic increase in package deliveries “further stressed an already misaligned and outdated mail network.” The Government Accountability Office, a watchdog agency, has labeled the Postal Service as a “high risk” program vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse.
The Postal Service, which was once a Cabinet-level department of the government, was reorganized into an independent agency under President Richard Nixon. The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 established the board of governors as a way to insulate the agency from political pressure while making decisions on postal rates, appointments and salaries. Unions representing postal workers had carried out widespread strikes that year calling for pay increases.
The Postal Service has also been affected by the president’s sweeping agenda on tariffs. The agency had initially halted deliveries of packages from mainland China and Hong Kong after an order by President Trump in January ended duty-free handling of many smaller parcels — but quickly reversed its decision as the widespread ramifications of such a move became apparent.
On Friday, Mr. Trump criticized the Postal Service for its recent financial troubles, suggesting that the agency was inefficient and a drain on the budget.
“We want to have a post office that works well and doesn’t lose massive amounts of money,” he said.
