It’s probably no secret to many of you that Amazon’s use of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to deliver its products likely saved the failing government agency from collapse.

According to a report by the New York Times, parcel and package shipping is the USPS’s one growth area. And it’s been what’s kept the company afloat as other segments lose billions a year.

But according to analysis by Citigroup, the U.S. Postal Service is charging the retail giant below-average rates for the packages it delivers. In fact, the USPS would have to raise rates by about 50% just to break even on its costs.

And while that may sound like a good thing — for people shipping products sold through Amazon, at least — it’s actually the latest way Jeff Bezos is enforcing his growing monopoly…

$111 Billion Isn’t Rich Enough

As you already know from other articles I’ve written about Amazon and its shady policies, about three-quarters (75%) of the products available for purchase on Amazon are sold by third parties.

These are small mom-and-pop stores that make the majority of their revenue from selling online through Amazon’s platform. And they’re able to make a healthy living from it.

But that just doesn’t sit well with Jeff Bezos. He doesn’t want to see anyone getting rich off his creation but him. And apparently being the richest person in the world with over $111 billion to his name isn’t enough.

So he’s been enacting policies for the past few years to squeeze every penny he can out of the small businesses using Amazon.

He ended the Amazon wholesaling program that thousands of small sellers depended on for their livelihoods earlier this year. Now they’re forced to retain warehouse space to carry their own inventories, and their products are showing up far below those fulfilled by Amazon in search results.

Some small sellers estimate they’ll lose about 50% of their business this year thanks to Jeff’s power grab.

And now, with the high-volume delivery season upon us, Amazon is making another move to squeeze profits from its sellers and bulk up its own bank accounts at the same time.

You Can’t Sit Ship Here

In a bold move, Amazon is, in effect, committing to a hostile takeover of the USPS. That may sound crazy, but Bezos’ company is already its biggest customer. And it’s already getting discounted shipping rates well below the average rate — perhaps even below the actual cost of shipping.

But now Bezos is taking that one step further and imposing an outright ban on anyone but him using the USPS this shipping season.

Believe it or not, that’s really what’s going on. Amazon just came out with an announcement that its sellers were banned from using the USPS’ one- to three-day Priority Mail shipping options — the most common for Prime deliveries — unless the sellers buy the postage directly from Amazon.

You read that correctly. Even if the sellers buy postage directly from the post office, Amazon won’t let them send the package.

You already know Amazon is getting a screaming good deal on the price it pays the USPS for shipping packages. But you might not know that many high-volume third-party sellers also have deals set up with shipping companies.

Some have contracts where they buy postage through an online application that matches them with the best and lowest-cost option. Some have contracts with individual shipping companies for discounted rates. And others even have deals in place with the USPS itself.

But they’re going to have to forfeit all the hard work that went into building those deals. And they’re going to have to pay as much as 12% more for each product they ship if they want to use the USPS this holiday season.

And Amazon will get even richer off its dysfunctional relationship with the U.S. Postal Service. That’s because Amazon is profiting from what we call “the spread” in finance.

Spread it on Thick

The spread is just the difference between two prices. It can be the difference between the bid and the ask on a stock trade or the difference between what banks pay to borrow money and what they charge to lend it out.

But in this case, it’s the difference between the ridiculously low prices Amazon pays the USPS and the ridiculously high prices Amazon charges its sellers for shipping.

And with third-party sellers making up nearly 75% of the more than 1 billion gifts expected to be shipped between now and the New Year, Amazon is looking to make millions if not billions off that spread.

Think about this: Last year, a total of around 2.5 billion packages were shipped in the U.S. last holiday season. Amazon Prime packages accounted for over 1 billion of them. And 75% of those came from third-party sellers.

At a cost of $12.80 per medium flat-rate Priority Mail box, that’s $9.6 billion in shipping paid by Amazon third-party sellers. This year, the online megalith is planning to get some of that pile of cash for itself.

And with the kind of discounts Amazon has negotiated from the USPS, it could potentially squeeze billions of dollars from its sellers with this sneaky move.

You Can’t Trust a Trust

Basically, what Amazon is doing here is completely illegal. It’s using its massive size and market share in online retail to establish itself as the dominant force in another industry: shipping.

And that’s an antitrust violation when a company uses its dominance in one market to set itself up with an advantage in a market where it’s less established.

But that’s exactly what Amazon and Mr. Bezos are doing. And they don’t care that they’re being anti-competitive. They want it that way.

Competition isn’t a good thing to powerful companies like Amazon and powerful people like Jeff Bezos. It’s an inconvenience to be stomped out with impunity.

And let’s be honest. The president is focused on China and the Fed. The Democrats are focused on the president. And the Republicans are focused on the Democrats’ focus on the president.

So nobody is even paying attention to Jeff Bezos right now. And certainly nobody is going to shift their focus and stop Amazon from doing whatever the heck it pleases.