US President Donald Trump has ordered the Treasury Department to halt the production of new pennies, calling the cost of minting them “excessively wasteful.”
Posting on his Truth Social platform, Trump stated, “For far too long, the United States has been producing pennies that cost more than 2 cents each. This is a waste of resources! I have directed my Treasury Secretary to cease their production.”
The Trump 2.0 administration has been aggressively pushing cost-cutting measures, targeting entire government agencies and significantly reducing the federal workforce.
“Let’s eliminate waste from our great nation’s budget, even if it’s just one penny at a time,” Trump wrote.
The announcement came after Trump attended the first half of the Super Bowl championship in New Orleans.
While traveling to the event, the President told reporters that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uncovered financial irregularities within the Treasury Department, hinting that some payments might not even be necessary.
“You’ve probably read about potential issues with Treasuries,” he said, though it remained unclear whether he was referring to government debt or specific transactions handled by the department, according to a Bloomberg report.
“That could be an interesting situation because a lot of those payments might not actually count,” he speculated. “If that’s the case, maybe our national debt is lower than we think.”
Notably, Musk’s DOGE recently requested access to Treasury Department payment data. However, the billionaire’s public comments have primarily focused on transactions related to contractors and grant recipients rather than government bondholders.
A Trump administration official stated that DOGE’s review and modernization of Treasury payment systems would help reduce future deficits and debt.
Meanwhile, a federal judge has temporarily blocked the government efficiency team’s access to Treasury Department records. The court also ordered the destruction of any data already obtained, following a lawsuit filed by several U.S. states.
Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent emphasized that the yield on 10-year government bonds serves as a key indicator for Trump’s goal of securing lower interest rates.
