WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump says he has directed the Treasury Division to cease minting new pennies, citing the rising price of manufacturing the one-cent coin.
“For much too lengthy america has minted pennies which accurately price us greater than 2 cents. That is so wasteful!” Trump wrote in a publish Sunday evening on his Reality Social website. “I’ve instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to cease producing new pennies.”
The transfer by Trump is the newest in what has been a rapid-fire effort by his new administration to enact sweeping change by way of govt order and proclamation on points starting from immigration, to gender and variety, to the title of the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump had not mentioned his need to remove the penny throughout his marketing campaign. However Elon Musk’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity raised the prospect in a publish on X final month highlighting the penny’s price.
The US Mint reported dropping US$85.3 million within the 2024 fiscal yr that resulted in September on the almost 3.2 billion pennies it produced. Each penny price almost US$0.037 – up from US$0.031 the yr earlier than.
The mint additionally loses cash on the nickel, with every of the US$0.05 cash costing almost US$0.14 to make.
It’s unclear whether or not Trump has the facility to unilaterally remove the lowly one-cent coin. Foreign money specs – together with the dimensions and steel content material of cash – are dictated by Congress.
However Robert Ok Triest, an economics professor at Northeastern College, has argued that there may be wiggle room.
“The method of discontinuing the penny within the US is slightly unclear. It will doubtless require an act of Congress, however the Secretary of the Treasury would possibly be capable to merely cease the minting of latest pennies,” he mentioned final month.
