Last week it was reported by an anonymous Amazon employee that the company planned to begin showing the cost of tariffs as a separate line item on its website (similar to how sales tax is displayed) — and President Trump did not like that one bit!
In a press briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said:
“This is a hostile and political act by Amazon. Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?”
She went on to suggest that the company is aligned with a Chinese propaganda arm.
Amazon quickly responded by saying:
“The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products. This was never approved and is not going to happen.”
The thing is though, it was never confirmed in the first place that Amazon planned to display tariffs to customers. It was just a rumor published by a DC publication called Punchbowl News that publishes political scoops. However the rumor reached the White House and caused a fury.
Fast Company's Grace Snelling wrote:
“By jumping to condemn Amazon’s potential new feature, the White House as good as broadcasted that it’s worried about companies exposing how much the president’s tariffs are costing consumers, and it’s prepared to name and shame them to prevent that from happening.”
The Verge's Nilay Patel wrote:
“Jeff Bezos now has no choice but to insist that Amazon display tariffs on its website now. None. Zero. If he doesn’t insist on it, he will prove himself to be among history’s least principled cowards. I say this bluntly because Bezos has spent the past year utterly tearing apart the Washington Post, causing one of our nation’s most important news outlets to bleed subscribers, reporters, editors, cartoonists, standing, and morale, in service of his ‘two pillars:' personal liberties and free markets.”
Trump later praised Jeff Bezos, calling him a “good guy” after Amazon said it had no plans to display the added costs of tariffs on items . Does Trump know that Jeff Bezos is no longer the CEO of Amazon?