--- title: Donald Trump's Amazon Attack Wrong About USPS Postal Service description: President Donald Trump blasted Amazon again, but his latest tweet inaccurately described the U.S. Postal Service as taxpayer-funded. canonical: https://time.com/5226036/donald-trump-amazon-postal-service/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-04-03T14:34:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T19:51:27.929Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump Attacked Amazon Again. But He Got This Basic Fact Wrong og:description: The U.S. Postal Service is not taxpayer-funded og:url: https://time.com/5226036/donald-trump-amazon-postal-service/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte2a568280540c0a0/69892c68fb4eaceeba896305/ap18088676114681.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5295 og:image:height: 2978 og:image:alt: Donald Trump og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump Attacked Amazon Again. But He Got This Basic Fact Wrong twitter:description: The U.S. Postal Service is not taxpayer-funded twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte2a568280540c0a0/69892c68fb4eaceeba896305/ap18088676114681.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Attacked Amazon Again. But He Got This Basic Fact Wrong > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Apr 3, 2018 2:34 PM UTC  President Donald Trump speaks at Local 18 Richfield Training Facility, Thursday, March 29, 2018, in Richfield, Ohio. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) President Donald Trump speaks at Local 18 Richfield Training Facility, Thursday, March 29, 2018, in Richfield, Ohio. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Pablo Martinez Monsivais—AP by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Apr 3, 2018 2:34 PM UTC President Donald Trump blasted Amazon again, but his latest tweet inaccurately described the U.S. Postal Service as taxpayer-funded. In a tweet sent Tuesday morning, Trump argued that the Post Office was giving the online retail giant a sweetheart deal — [a claim he has made before that is also wrong](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/apr/02/donald-trump/trump-usps-postal-service-amazon-losing-fortune/) — before adding that these supposed costs are “bourne \[sic\] by the American Taxpayer.” “Amazon should pay these costs (plus) and not have them bourne by the American Taxpayer,” he wrote. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/981168344924536832) But the U.S. Postal Service is not run like a typical government agency. In fact, it [“receives NO tax dollars for operating expenses”](https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/top-10-things-to-know.htm) as it notes on its own website, instead relying on the sale of “postage, products and services to fund its operations.” The Postal Service is making money off package delivery for shippers like Amazon, while much of the money it is losing is due to a 2006 law which requires that it [pre-fund future retirees’ health benefits](https://www.cnbc.com/id/45018432), among other things. Trump has repeatedly attacked Amazon and its owner, Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington _Post_, often conflating the two. (The _Post’s_ editor says Bezos [plays no role in its news coverage](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/business/media/to-trump-its-the-amazon-washington-post-to-its-editor-thats-baloney.html), and the two companies are separate.) Some conservatives have argued that [the Postal Service benefits from tax dollars](http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/) in other ways. For example, it does not pay local property tax, unlike a private shipper like UPS, and it can borrow money from the U.S. Treasury at lower-than-typical rates. But any losses from doing business with Amazon would not be taxpayer-covered, and the Postal Service is not currently losing money on package delivery anyway. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5226036/donald-trump-amazon-postal-service/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5226036/donald-trump-amazon-postal-service/"},"headline":"President Trump Attacked Amazon Again. 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