Postmaster General David Steiner has previously noted that the USPS is facing a cash crunch.
This deal should help fiox that.
Interesting that this is just now being announced. The spouse orders clothes from a place that use to ship via FedEx SmartPost that was slower than molasses and never delivered on the expected date. We noticed that they switched to this DHL eCommerce early in the year and have been very happy with the speed. FedEx SmartPost was 10 to 14 days and this DHL eCommerce is 7 days. On the DHL eCommerce, you can track the order on either DHL or USPS with the same tracking number.
We posted about it here on SAS earlier in the year (pretty sure when it was announced that USPS and UPS were joining back up).
Steiner’s official presentation to a congressional subcommittee regarding USPS finances:
( bolding mine )
I am not sure that the American public is aware that the Postal Service is at a critical juncture. I know thatI wasn’t aware of the extent of it before I took on this role, but at our current run rate and if we continue topay our required obligations in the same manner as we have done in recent years, then we will be out of cash in less than 12 months. So, less than a year from now the Postal Service will be unable to deliver the mail if we maintain the status quo.
The other carriers foist their unprofitable sectors onto the USPS and then the USPS loses money and people act surprised.
What really needs to happen is we need to decide whether or not the post office is a business or a public service and we need to set it up as such.
If it’s a public service then the public needs to pay for it and that includes all the parcel services that use it instead of using their own trucks.
If it’s a business, then everything about it including pricing, rates, negotiated contracts, maintenance, etc all need to be allowed to be changed as needed to get them out of the red.
This hybrid “you’re a business but just kidding, the government runs you” thing they’re doing just doesn’t work.
It worked fine for over 200 years, until 2006 when Congress and the President decided to change how pensions were paid for, among other things. Shortsighted politicians are a different problem than the structure of the system. Which isn’t to say there aren’t common sense reforms that could be implemented but won’t because of the previously mentioned politicians.
And most importantly, the removal of pre-funding retirement accounts that no other business on earth does or has done.
Looks like USPS has found a way to regain some of the revenue that they lost when they screwed with Amazon.
Definitely a plus for DHL who is very weak in their own last mile delivery in the US.
USPS needs more volume, volume which generates some profit margin. It has more capacity than it needs, and cannot, under existing law, reduce service. When most of your costs are fixed, and 70% of your routes lose money, more volume is your only option,
That is just plain business sense, no political or philosophical bias.
Whether it works or not will have to be seen, but it is some of the best news USPS has provided.
P.S. I am not a fan of DHL, so don’t suggest that I am.
You are a fan of DHL. 
I would assert that the problems really started a ¼-century before that, with the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970.
I would defy the possibility of making any convincingly-compelling argument that most all of USPS’ current ills do NOT stem directly from its passage; the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 was, quite obviously, merely a band-aid applied to the problems it created - a band-aid which was eventually ripped-off by the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022.
Nail, meet sledgehammer.
There’s a reason why the ‘monicur’ “Day & a Half Late” gained currency in S&H circles back in the 1990s…
I don’t know much about the 1970 act, but it’s easy to imagine how a law from before personal computers much less the internet might be obsolete in the current landscape of moving things around.
What I do know is the USPS was in the black until the 2006 law was passed, and wildly in the red since.
To be fair, the whole rationale for the passage of Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 was the fact that USPS was not in the black.
I don’t understand why this is touted as such a new thing. DHL has had DHL Mail Innovations (now called something else, I believe) for a very long time, with last-mile delivery by USPS. This new deal may just be an expansion or maybe the partnership ended and is being re-established. DHL Mail Innovations has always been just about the slowest service out there, I just cringe when I see something I’ve ordered is starting out with DHL.
Plus, USPS usage has fallen by 50% in the past 20 years…
…yet USPS still is required to deliver to EVERY address, six days a week.
Because it’s a public service. 
Public services need to be paid for.
They are typically paid for by taxes or fees.
No politician has proposed creating a tax subsidy or fee to support USPS. USPS is unable, by law, to raise postage enough to support these problems.
Can you see that the only result is insolvency, or do you see a solution which we and the Postmaster General have missed?
Maybe there is the same strategy at play as when the Social Security Trust Fund is empty. Nothing will be done to fix the problems until it is empty.
The USPS has several routes that cost millions per year, using mules ( down the grand canyon ) or airplanes with landing skis ( rural Alaska ). There are thousands of other less dramatic, low volume, very rural routes.
Canceling or substantially modifying these routes carries a heavy political burden, for the recipients are often very poor or native American tribes, or both.
If the USPS is not locked into long term contracts, this seems to be an opportunity for drones. Amazon, unfortunately, has given delivery drones the reputation of being for short-range, very quick deliveries in high density urban areas. But the Ukrainians have shown that drones can be very useful in the 10 to 100 mile range, carrying multi-kilogram warheads. If they can carry TNT or RDX, they could carry mail.
As the high cost contracts expire, drones could be phased in. Mules, airplanes, and gas-powered mail trucks could be phased out. Maintaining drones is cheaper than feeding mules and paying mule handlers, and way cheaper than maintaining airplanes and trucks.
Note that incoming mail weighs a lot more than outgoing mail. ( Incoming mail in rural areas often includes many consumables such as food, fuel, and medicine ) Many of the flights could be one-way, using parachute drops, which are much cheaper, safer, and faster than landing.
Actually, the PO was decades ahead of the curve on this idea. The ONLY reason I know about this was my ill spent youth stamp collecting, but ROCKET MAIL was a thing!
Another example of very expensive delivery systems.
From the linked page:
…the Navy submarine USS Barbero fired a guided missile carrying 3,000 letters towards the naval auxiliary air station in Mayport, Florida…
Rockets are expensive. But submarines are so expensive that they make rockets look cheap.
The modern difference with drones is that they come back. Much of the mail is one-way, but the delivery vehicles can be round trip.
Let’s not forget the Little Engine That Carried Franked Mail.