T<\/span>he<\/strong> U.S. Postal Service says that its large financial losses are caused by\u00a0market forces and governmental constraints but not Amazon.com, in a release of its quarterly statistics that stood in contrast to pointed\u00a0statements made by President Trump.<\/p>\n Trump\u00a0made waves\u00a0in March<\/a>\u00a0when he declared that the Postal Service was losing money on every package it delivered for Amazon and falsely asserted that The Washington Post was a lobbyist for the company, before ordering\u00a0a review of the service\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n The Post is owned by Jeffrey P. Bezos, who is the founder and chief executive of Amazon, but the two firms are independent of each other.<\/p>\n But the Postal Service\u2019s second-quarter results, which were released Friday,\u00a0note that increases in shipping and package volume remained areas of strong revenue growth amid other declines and economic pressures, which added up to a $1.3 billion net loss in the quarter.<\/p>\n Though mail was down by 700 million pieces or 2.1 percent,\u00a0package volume grew by some 70 million pieces, about 5 percent, the report said.<\/p>\n <\/a> While revenue overall had grown slightly to $17.5 billion, due in part to these increases, operating costs had surged up 5.7 percent, driven by rising costs connected to\u00a0retiree health benefits, employee compensation and transportation expenses from increased\u00a0fuel rates and contractual issues.<\/p>\n Officials also cited declining letter volumes, and in particular the decline of the use of First Class and marketing mail, as a challenge faced by the business.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite growth in our package business, our financial results reflect systemic trends in the marketplace and the effects of an inflexible, legislatively mandated business model that limits our ability to generate sufficient revenue and imposes costs upon us that we cannot afford,\u201d Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan said in a statement. \u201cWith continued aggressive management and greater legal authority to respond to changes in our marketplace and to control our costs, the Postal Service can return to financial sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/b>The Postal Service has petitioned the Postal Regulatory Commission, the independent body\u00a0that regulates it, to give it the ability to raise stamp prices beyond inflation, according to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n \u201cCongress and the commission need to act now,\u201d Brennan said.<\/p>\n The Postal Service did note that the \u201clabor-intensive\u201d package business had raised employee-compensation expenses by $364 million.<\/p>\n Amazon uses the Postal Service for about 40 percent of its shipping needs, analysts have estimated, with a per-package cost of about $2, which is significantly lower than the rates charged by other major shippers, according to Post business writer Steve Pearlstein. Amazon shipped more than 1.2 billion packages in the United States last year, according to statistics cited by\u00a0the Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n The agency\u2019s regulator has disputed the idea that Amazon is hurting its business. The Wall Street Journal reported that former postmaster general Patrick Donahoe told analysts last week that the contract with Amazon had been profitable for the Postal Service.<\/p>\n Pearlstein, who acknowledged the complex economic issues at play in the contract, wrote that the arrangement is\u00a0likely a win for both Amazon and the Postal Service, which is getting additional business for something it is already set up to do: stop at every home, business, and rural post box six days a week, though it now provides the service on Sundays for Amazon.<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Shop2Me-by-Moov-Africa-1024x375.jpg\")
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