President Trump says he has directed the Treasury Division to cease minting new pennies, citing the rising price of manufacturing the one-cent coin.

“For a lot too lengthy the USA has minted pennies which accurately price us greater than 2 cents. That is so wasteful!” Mr. Trump wrote in a put up Sunday evening on his Reality Social website. “I’ve instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to cease producing new pennies.”

The transfer by Mr. Trump is the most recent in what has been a rapid-fire effort by his new administration to enact sweeping change by way of government orders and proclamations on points starting from immigration, to gender and variety, to the title of the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. Trump had not mentioned his want to remove the penny throughout his marketing campaign. However Elon Musk’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity raised the prospect in a put up on X final month highlighting the penny’s price.

The U.S. Mint reported shedding $85.3 million within the 2024 fiscal 12 months that resulted in September on the almost 3.2 billion pennies it produced. Each penny price almost $0.037 — up from $0.031 the 12 months earlier than.

The mint additionally loses cash on the nickel, with every of the $0.05 cash costing almost $0.14 to make.

It’s unclear whether or not Mr. Trump has the ability to unilaterally remove the lowly one-cent coin. Foreign money specs — together with the dimensions and metallic 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 U.S. is slightly unclear. It will seemingly require an act of Congress, however the Secretary of the Treasury would possibly have the ability to merely cease the minting of latest pennies,” he stated final month.

Members of Congress have repeatedly launched laws taking goal on the zinc coin with copper plating. Proposals through the years have tried to briefly droop the penny’s manufacturing, remove it from circulation, or require that costs be rounded to the closest 5 cents, in accordance with the Congressional Analysis Service.

Proponents of eliminating the coin have cited price financial savings, speedier checkouts at money registers, and the truth that various nations have already eradicated their one-cent cash. Canada, as an illustration, stopped minting its penny in 2012.

It would not be the primary time the U.S. eradicated its least helpful coin. The half-cent coin was discontinued by Congress in 1857.

Mr. Trump’s new administration has been sharply targeted on slicing prices, with Musk, who has been introduced on to guide the duty, focusing on whole companies and huge swaths of the federal workforce as he tries to determine a objective of $2 trillion in financial savings.

“Let’s rip the waste out of our nice nations finances, even when it is a penny at a time,” Mr. Trump wrote in his put up.

Mr. Trump despatched the message as he was departing New Orleans after watching the primary half of the Tremendous Bowl.