Trump orders an evaluation of the Postal Service following his criticism of Amazon
President Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order to set up a task force to study the United States Postal Service and recommend reforms.

That development may represent an escalation in Trump's attacks on Amazon for its dealings with the service, analysts said. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular office hours.

The task force will evaluate the operations and finances of the USPS, the order said. That includes examining the postal service's role in competitive markets, the state of its business model, workforce, operations, costs and pricing. The task force was ordered to look at the decline in mail volume and how that affects the USPS' self-financing and the agency's monopoly over letter delivery and mailboxes.

"The USPS is on an unsustainable financial path and must be restructured to prevent a taxpayer-funded bailout," Trump said in the executive order.

The USPS has incurred "$65 billion of cumulative losses since the 2007-2009 recession," the document said. It added that the agency had been unable to make payments for its retiree health benefit obligations that "totaled more than $38 billion" at the end of fiscal 2017.

"It shall be the policy of my Administration that the United States postal system operate under a sustainable business model to provide necessary mail services to citizens and businesses, and to compete fairly in commercial markets," Trump wrote.

The task force would submit a report on its findings and recommendations to Trump within 120 days since the issuing of the executive order.