Investing.com-- U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he will instruct the Treasury to stop minting pennies, calling the process wasteful, with slashing government spending being a major part of his administration’s agenda.
Trump said in a social media post that minting pennies “literally” cost the U.S. more than 2 cents, and that the process was wasteful.
“I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The cost of making a single penny was about 3.7 cents in 2024, and the coin has cost above its face value to produce for 19 consecutive years, data from the U.S. Mint showed. It was not immediately clear just how much the government was spending on minting the coins.
Trump’s comments reiterate the president’s agenda of slashing government costs and reducing the fiscal deficit- a goal that he has touted as one of his main priorities.
To this end, Trump had formed the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, to aid his administration in cutting costs.
But DOGE garnered controversy in recent weeks after spearheading a push to end funding to USAID. Trump was also seen considering abolishing the Department of Education.
Still, it remained unclear just how much of the government budget Trump and DOGE could actually slash, given that a bulk of government spending is dominated by the defense budget.
Musk had also recently tempered his goal of cutting government spending by $2 trillion in two years, stating that $1 trillion seemed more feasible.