President Trump’s administration is now looking into ways to gain more control over the US Postal Service (USPS), according to a number of new published reports. If successful, the change could redefine how Americans get critical deliveries including online purchases, prescription drugs, checks and vote-by-mail ballots.

It was first reported by the Washington Post Thursday night that President Donald Trump planned to disband the US Postal Service’s Board of Governors and place the agency under direct control of the Commerce Department and Secretary Howard Lutnick.

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal also reported on the desire to dissolve the commission, this time citing government officials.

The Postal Service did not respond to requests for comment.

However, USPS governing board is taking the threat of it being disbanded seriously enough that it held an emergency meeting on Thursday. This meeting was to retain outside counsel with instructions to sue the White House should the president remove members of the board or try to alter the agency’s independent status.

President Trump has already motioned to fire other members of governing federal agencies, such as the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, leaving those agencies without the minimum number of members needed to act to provide protections to members of the public.

While other countries have successfully privatized their postal services, it would certainly be a big change for Americans. Through privatization, major shifts would occur in how Americans receive deliveries, and even who would be able to get service. Current law requires the USPS to deliver to all addresses, even rural ones that are too costly for a private business to serve profitably. Even many online purchases handled by private companies such as United Parcel Service depend upon the the Postal Service to handle the “last mile” of delivery to homes.

Trump has shown interest in shifting USPS for some time. In December, then President-elect Trump said privatizing the USPS is “not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s an idea that a lot of people have liked for a long time,” Trump said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “We’re looking at it.” Trump dropped previous plans to try to privatize the service in 2018 during his first term.

It appears unlikely that Trump would be able to privatize the agency without Congressional approval, given the many federal laws that control the independent service. One of those laws is requiring universal delivery, as well as one outlawing a strike by USPS employees. With a 630,000-person work force, 91% of whom are covered by union contracts, the USPS is the nation’s largest unionized employers.

Whether or not those laws would stand true in a privatized Postal Service is uncertain.

One of the service’s major unions, the American Postal Workers Union, issued a statement blasting the idea of disbanding the board of governors or privatization.

“It would be an outrageous, unlawful attack on a storied national treasure, enshrined in the Constitution and created by Congress to serve every American home and business equally,” said the statement issued from the 200-member union. “Any attack on the Postal Service would be part of the billionaire oligarch coup, directed not just at the postal workers our union represents, but the millions of Americans who rely on the critical public service our members provide every single day.”

The service has been losing money for years, until it recently reported $144 million in net income for the final three months of 2024. It was the first profitable quarter since the April through June period of 2022. It posted a $9.5 billion net loss in the fiscal year ending this past September, up from a loss $6.5 billion the previous year.

The volume of first class mail has been declining for years as people found other ways, including emails, texts an other electronic communications replacing letters, and online payments replacing the sending of checks to pay bills, yet the popularity of online shopping has resulted in a significant increase in package volumes.

The USPS is one of the most cherished parts of the federal government, according to a survey of 9,400 Americans by the Pew Research Center last July, which gave it a 72% approval rating, just behind the National Park Service, which was the most popular agency, and just ahead of NASA.

Despite the denials from the White House that it is not intending to take control of the USPS, opponents of privatization are not assured.

The popularity and approval rate for the postal service is the reason efforts to privatize it failed during the first Trump administration, according to Brian Renfroe, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers.

“The people of this country regardless of their political persuasion, love the postal service,” Renfroe said in a statement, “Regardless of which way they voted, what they did not vote for was the destruction of the Postal Service.”

In order to learn more about changes taking place within the federal workforce, subscribe today.