The penny appears to be finally in its final throes after more than two centuries in circulation, with firm plans from the American government to phase out the copper-colored currency now in the offing.

On Thursday, the Department of the Treasury announced plans to discontinue minting of the penny early next year once it runs out of blank templates used to make the coins. The de-circulation of the penny is expected to save the federal government nearly $60 million annually in material costs.

“Given the cost savings to the taxpayer, this is just another example of our administration cutting waste for the American taxpayer and making the government more efficient for the American people,” a Treasury official said in a statement to Axios.

Minting the coins costs nearly 4 cents for every single penny, and the government lost more than $85 million last year producing three billion pennies. President Trump has been aiming to stop its production since returning to the White House in January.

“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful,” he said in a February post on Truth Social. “I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies.”

“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” he said.

With the cost of minting the penny being above face value for nearly 20 years, there has long been bipartisan support to take the coin out of circulation.

Congress could make Mr. Trump’s order permanent through law. But past congressional efforts to ditch it have failed. Two bipartisan bills to kill the penny permanently were introduced this year.

Senators Lee and Merkley introduced the Make Sense Not Cents Act this month. In April, Congresswoman Lisa McClain and Congressman Robert Garcia, along with Senators Lummis and Gillibrand, introduced the Common Cents Act.