US President Donald Trump phoned Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos following report that the E-commerce company was looking into demonstrating tariff levies on products as a transparency measure, The Wall Street Journal reported. This development comes after White House described the action of Amazon as a “political act” and “hostile,” asking why it hadn’t taken a similar action under previous administrations when inflation was at an all-time high.
During his interview with the reporters on Tuesday, Trump admitted to calling Bezos. He described the Amazon CEO as “very nice” and “very terrific”. “He solved the problem very quickly. He did the right thing. He is a good guy,” the President said, adding that it was a “good call.”
The new about Amazon was reported by Punchbowl News. It said that Amazon will soon ” demonstrate how much of an item’s cost is derived from tariffs — right next to the product’s total listed price.” The action might demonstrate to American shoppers firsthand how Trump’s tariffs are impacting product prices. Trump has imposed minimum taxes of 10% on all other nations and 145% tariffs on Chinese imports.
Shortly before the call, one of the top officials had contacted the president to tell him about the story.
One of the officials, who was given anonymity to speak freely, told CNN, “Of course he was pis**d.” “Why should a multibillion dollar company pass off costs to consumers?”
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WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blasts Amazon
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described the Amazon’s action as a “hostile and political act” at a briefing on Tuesday, noting that she had already discussed the issue with Trump.
“Why didn’t Amazon do it when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest in 40 years?” she asked.
Later, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stated that it is obviously hostile if a business deliberately attempts to “make it seem” that tariffs had affected prices.
In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, he declared, “It’s nonsense.” He went on to say, “A 10% tariff is not going to change virtually any price,” alluding to the baseline duty that is applied to all nations. “The only price will change would be a product that we don’t make here, like a mango.” However, there are many other tariffs in place than the 10% one.
Here’s what Amazon said
Meanwhile, an Amazon representative told CNN in a statement that the plan “was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties.”
However, Amazon stated that it was thinking about the “idea of listing import charges on certain products” on Haul, its subsidiary website that offers goods for less than $20, but the change was not implemented.
“This was never approved and not going to happen,” an Amazon representative said.
