There has been a long running feud between President Trump and Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. Now Trump attacks Amazon. He claims that the United States Postal Service should be charging Amazon much more for shipping.
Trump tweeted:
Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/946728546633953285
The beef between Trump and Bezos has been going on for quite a while. His newspaper, The Washington Post, is one of Trump's most hated publications. Their negative coverage of the Republican has drawn Trump's ire.
For 11 straight years the USPS has posted losses. A big part of that is their legacy pension and costs of health care.
Per Daily Mail:
And while online shopping has led to growth in its package-delivery business, fewer Americans send letters via first-class mail every year.
Federal regulators moved recently to allow bigger jumps to stamp prices beyond the rate of inflation, which could eventually increase companies' shipping rates.
Amazon, on the other hand, has the markings of an unstoppable juggernaut – and one analysis shows that the Postal Service is giving it a free ride.
An April report from Citigroup found that the fast pace of change in the shipping business has left the USPS struggling to allocate its expenses correctly.
Amazon's stock price has jumped by 23 per cent in the past 90 days.
Yet the company continues to see shipping as a loss-leader, reporting that it lost $7.2 billion shipping packages in 2016.
Customers can receive free two-day shipping on most items by paying for a $99 annual 'Prime' membership. Some of those packages arrive via USPS but many are sent through UPS and FedEx.
Even with the cost of shipping, Amazon posted an overall profit of $2.4 billion in 2016, up from $596 million a year earlier.
Amazon is dominating the e-commerce industry thanks to their ability to provide free two-day shipping to Prime customers. If Trump gets his wish it could make it more difficult for Amazon to provide such a cheap shipping option for customers.
Leave a Reply