WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he has directed the Treasury Division to prevent minting new pennies, bringing up the emerging value of manufacturing the one-cent coin.“For a long way too lengthy the US has minted pennies which accurately value us greater than 2 cents. That is so wasteful!” Trump wrote in a publish Sunday evening on his Fact Social website. “I’ve advised my Secretary of the United States Treasury to prevent generating new pennies.”The transfer through Trump is the most recent in what has been a rapid-fire effort through his new management to enact sweeping trade via govt order and proclamation on problems starting from immigration, to gender and variety, to the title of the Gulf of Mexico.Trump had now not mentioned his want to get rid of the penny all over his marketing campaign. However Elon Musk’s so-called Division of Govt Potency raised the chance in a publish on X final month highlighting the penny’s value.
The U.S. Mint reported shedding $85.3 million within the 2024 fiscal 12 months that resulted in September at the just about 3.2 billion pennies it produced. Each and every penny value just about $0.037 — up from $0.031 the 12 months sooner than.
The mint additionally loses cash at the nickel, with each and every of the $0.05 cash costing just about $0.14 to make.It’s unclear whether or not Trump has the facility to unilaterally get rid of the lowly one-cent coin. Foreign money specs — together with the scale and steel content material of cash — are dictated through Congress.
However Robert Ok. Triest, an economics professor at Northeastern College, has argued that there may well be wiggle room.“The method of discontinuing the penny within the U.S. is a little bit unclear. It might most probably require an act of Congress, however the Secretary of the Treasury could possibly merely forestall the minting of latest pennies,” he mentioned final month.Individuals of Congress have time and again presented regulation taking goal on the zinc coin with copper plating. Proposals through the years have tried to quickly droop the penny’s manufacturing, get rid of it from movement, or require that costs be rounded to the closest 5 cents, in keeping with the Congressional Analysis Provider.
Proponents of getting rid of the coin have cited value financial savings, speedier checkouts at money registers, and the truth that quite a few international locations have already eradicated their one-cent cash. Canada, as an example, stopped minting its penny in 2012.It wouldn’t be the primary time the U.S. eradicated its least precious coin. The half-cent coin was once discontinued through Congress in 1857.Trump’s new management has been sharply interested by slicing prices, with Musk, who has been introduced on to guide the duty, concentrated on complete companies and big swaths of the federal personnel as he tries to spot a function of $2 trillion in financial savings.“Let’s rip the waste out of our nice countries price range, even though it’s a penny at a time,” Trump wrote in his publish.Trump despatched the message as he was once departing New Orleans after observing the primary 1/2 of the Tremendous Bowl.___AP White Area Correspondent Zeke Miller contributed to this file.
