00:00Amazon is pulling back from the U.S. Postal Service, and it could leave USPS in serious trouble.
00:05Here's what's happening. In a broader effort to cut costs and take more control over its
00:09deliveries, Amazon is scaling back how many packages it sends through USPS. Now, Amazon
00:14has been USPS's biggest customer for about a decade, sending around 1.5 to 1.7 billion packages
00:20through them a year. That's estimated to be about 25 to 35% of all USPS package volume.
00:26And according to Bloomberg, Amazon is believed to make up roughly 5 to 7 billion dollars a year for
00:32USPS, or about 10 to 15% of its total revenue. But after tight negotiations last year, Amazon says
00:38USPS walked away from their deal because they couldn't agree on pricing. The Postal Service has
00:43not been quiet about dealing with serious money problems and says it could run out of cash within
00:47a year without help from Congress. So if Amazon cuts a huge chunk of that business, it could make
00:52things a lot worse very quickly. Supporters say this is just Amazon doing what big companies do,
00:57cutting costs and building their own systems to be faster and more efficient. They also say USPS
01:02needs to adapt and modernize rather than relying so heavily on one single customer. But critics say
01:07this shows how fragile USPS has become, arguing the government hasn't supported it enough, forcing it
01:12to rely heavily on massive companies like Amazon just to stay afloat. And losing that support may also mean
01:18losing service in smaller areas. Some also argue that this could lead to higher prices or taxpayer
01:23bailouts down the line. So the question is, should the Postal Service be expected to survive on its own,
01:29or is this something the government needs to step in and save? Drop your answer in the comments, check out
01:34our website, and follow us here for more.
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