Stock values for UPS and FedEx have soared after President Donald Trump said he would reject any funding to the U.S. Postal Service due to the Democrats push for mail-in voting.
Stock prices for each delivery service rose by more than $3 just after the president said he didn't want to give more money to the Postal Service. The news bumped the value of each company by up to 2%. Each company has seen stock increases since the end of July.
“It’s basic competition 101. If your competitor, a state competitor, is hurt, it’s an advantage for private companies in the same industry,” Tim Wu, an antitrust professor at Columbia University, told Washington Examiner. “It’s absolutely a boon for UPS and FedEx. It’s doubtlessly helpful to them.”
In an interview with Fox Business on Thursday, Trump criticized a $3.4 trillion coronavirus relief bill passed by House Democrats in May, which provided $25 billion for the Postal Service and $3.5 billion in election assistance to states.
"They want $3.5 billion for something that will turn out to be fraudulent," Trump said. "That’s election money, basically. They want $3.5 billion for the mail-in votes ... They want $25 billion — billion — for the post office. Now, they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots."
The Postal Service has recently been slow in delivering mail in Kentucky, Maryland and other parts of the country because of coronavirus-related issues.