US President Donald Trump announced that he has ordered the Treasury Department to stop minting one-cent coins due to their rising production costs.
"For too long the United States has produced 1 cent coins that literally cost us over 2 cents. This is so wasteful! I have instructed my U.S. Treasury Secretary to stop producing them. Let's stop the waste in our great nation's budget, even if it's just one cent at a time," Trump wrote in a post Sunday night on his Truth Social platform.
The cost of minting the one-cent coin reached almost 3,7 cents in the 2024 fiscal year in the United States, and its production value was greater than its face value for 19 consecutive years, according to the annual report of the United States Mint.
These coins in the image of President Abraham Lincoln were made of copper until 1962 and today are made of zinc, but with a copper coating.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who Trump has tasked with cutting spending in the US government apparatus, had criticized the one-cent coin in a post on his platform, X, last month.
“The production of the one-cent coin costs more than three cents and cost American taxpayers $179 million in fiscal year 2023. The Mint minted more than 4,5 billion such coins in fiscal year 2023, about 40% of all coin production,” Musk’s Government Efficiency Department said.
Source: iefimerida.gr
