WASHINGTON, July 17 (Reuters) - New U.S. Postmaster

General David Steiner told employees he is confident the Postal

Service will be able to demonstrate it can operate successfully

as an independent agency.

"I am convinced that a strength of the Postal Service

resides in our structure as a self-financing independent entity

of the executive branch, functioning much like a business but

with a public service mission," Steiner said in a message to

employees after starting his tenure on Tuesday.

"I am confident that we will be able to demonstrate that the

Postal Service can operate successfully under this structure,"

he added, noting that he wanted to preserve its independence

"far into the future."

In February, President

Donald Trump

called USPS a "tremendous loser for this country,"

and said he was considering merging the Postal Service with

the U.S. Commerce Department

, a move Democrats said would violate federal law.

Former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy

resigned in March

. DeJoy led efforts to restructure the money-losing USPS for

nearly five years.

"The Postal Service needs to be on a realistic path to

match costs to revenues on a consistent, long-term basis,"

Steiner told employees.

Steiner, a former CEO of Waste Management who

stepped down as a FedEx ( FDX )

board member in May

after he was announced as the new postal chief, has raised

sharp concerns from postal unions because of his ties to a

competitor to the Postal Service.

DeJoy led an effort to dramatically restructure the

USPS, including cutting forecast cumulative losses over a decade

to $80 billion from $160 billion even as mail volumes fell to

the lowest level since 1968.

The price of first-class mail stamps rose to

78 cents from 73 cents

on Sunday. Stamp prices are up 46% since early 2019, when

they were 50 cents.

The USPS, an agency with 635,000 employees that lost

$9.5 billion last year, reduced its workforce by 10,000 workers

earlier this year through a voluntary retirement program. The

USPS in May reported a $3.3 billion net loss for the three

months ending March 31.