Trump tells treasury to end ‘wasteful’ production of pennies

Donald Trump has ordered the US treasury to stop minting new pennies, calling the coins’ production “wasteful”.

“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents,” the president said in a Truth Social post on Sunday night as he left the Super Bowl in New Orleans. “Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time.”

While Trump did not mention the elimination of the penny in his campaign, Elon Musk’s controversial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) called attention to the cost of making the coin in a post to X in January.

“The penny costs over 3 cents to make and cost US taxpayers over $179 million in FY2023,” said Doge, adding that 4.5bn pennies were produced in that fiscal year.

So far, the treasury department, which oversees the mint, has not publicly announced any plans to stop penny production. The department also did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.

The US Mint produced approximately 3.2bn pennies in 2024, the most of any other coin, at a loss of $85.3m. Pennies cost about 3.07 cents to produce, an increase from 3.01 cents in 2023. But most pennies in circulation are never spent, triggering the US Mint to create more.

It is unclear if Trump has the authority to halt penny production as Congress oversees the manufacture of coin currency.

But the US would be one of several countries to stop manufacturing low-denomination cents. Canada stopped producing its one-cent coins, also known as pennies, in 2012 due to production costs. Ireland, the Netherlands, Brazil and others also stopped producing or circulating one-cent coins.

The latest declaration from Trump represents one of many quick changes he has implemented less than a month into his second presidency, including renaming the Gulf of Mexico and taking aim at efforts to phase out plastic straws.