President Trump has personally pushed U.S. Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the rate the Postal Service charges Amazon.com and other firms to ship packages, according to three people familiar with their conversations, a dramatic move that probably would cost these companies billions of dollars. "Brennan has so far resisted Trump's demand, explaining in multiple conversations occurring this year and last that these arrangements are bound by contracts and must be reviewed by a regulatory commission, the three people said," The Post reported. "She has told the president that the Amazon relationship is beneficial for the Postal Service and gave him a set of slides that showed the variety of companies, in addition to Amazon, that also partner for deliveries." Brennan and Trump have met at the White House about the matter several times, beginning in 2017, and most recently four months ago, the three people said. Clouding the matter even further, Trump’s aides have also disagreed internally about whether Amazon is paying enough to the Postal Service, with some believing the giant commerce company should be paying more, while others believe that if it weren’t for Amazon, the Postal Service might be out of business, according to the three people. Because the Postal Service operates in a highly competitive delivery marketplace — against major established players and a myriad of startups — we negotiate service agreements to support the specific delivery needs of our customers, with full recognition of the market forces at play. "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?" Trump doubled down with more tweets in April, saying Amazon was "costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy." Citi estimates that because Amazon is one of the USPS's biggest customers in the package-shipping business, raising prices could cost the e-commerce giant billions of dollars. In a conversation with UBS analysts in April, Donahoe explained that the USPS's business is split between mail — like letters and magazines — that only the government service could deliver, and "competitive products," or packages that rivals like FedEx or UPS could deliver. It is not known how much Amazon pays the Postal Service each year and what percentage of its items are shipped via the Postal Service. The Postal Service, meanwhile, reported shipping and package income of $19.5 billion last year, an 11.8 percent increase from one year before. While the Postal Service is legally prohibited from charging a shipper less than it costs to deliver a package, the Postal Service is not required to include in its costs things such as retiree benefits. The Postal Service has tried to rapidly adjust its business model to take on more package delivery, but he said it would be better suited if it delivered fewer packages at a higher rate. Some of our competitors in the package delivery space would dearly love for the Postal Service to aggressively raise our rates higher than the marketplace can bear — so they could either charge more themselves or syphon away postal customers — and Marchand’s article no doubt abets this purpose. The Postal Service is a self-funding public institution that generates its revenue from the sale of postal products and service, we compete for every customer across all of our product categories, and we exist for the benefit of American businesses and consumers.” 
 
 Because the Postal Service has lost money for 11 straight years, it has had to repeatedly borrow funds from the Treasury Department’s Federal Financing Bank, totaling $15 billion. The Postal Service, led by the postmaster, works out contracts with private companies that are approved by an independent federal agency, the Postal Regulatory Commission, which also assesses each year whether the contracts are in compliance with the law. #sendDonaldtospace,” Bezos, who owns a space company, tweeted in December 2015.
– Turns out President Trump isn't just attacking the Postal Service on Twitter. In off-the-book meetings, he's been urging US Postmaster General Megan Brennan to hike package-delivery charges for Amazon and other companies by 100%—a change that could add billions to their bills, insiders tell the Washington Post. Brennan has refused, saying the deals benefit the Postal Service, but Trump is building pressure with his Twitter attacks and a government review of the contracts. Meanwhile, the Postal Service is still losing money ($2.7 billion net loss last year, per Business Insider) and borrowing from the Treasury Department's Federal Financing Bank to stay afloat. But the Postal Service says hiking their package contracts (which remain private) would only help competitors. "Some of our competitors in the package delivery space would dearly love for the Postal Service to aggressively raise our rates higher than the marketplace can bear—so they could either charge more themselves or siphon away postal customers," a Postal Service spokesman wrote in the Hill. Adding further confusion, Trump's aides disagree on whether Amazon is paying enough or keeping the Postal Service in business. And some White House officials say Trump is only attacking Amazon because of articles published in the Post, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeffrey Bezos.