1 day Ago By Chris Griffith
The Trump administration and Amazon have locked horns over the e-commerce giant’s floated plan to display the import tariff component of prices during checkout. The idea would be confined to import tariff amounts on goods bought on Amazon Haul, which specialises in ultra-cheap products under US$20. According to reports Amazon hadn’t considered detailing import tariff amounts on purchases made from its main site.
However officially, Amazon told US media that detailing tariff components “was never approved and was not going to happen” following a report on Punchbowl News . The denial still drew the ire of the Trump administration which said such a move amounted to “a hostile and political act”. The Trump administration would be keen to ensure other US retailers would not move in the same direction.
US consumers are used to details of federal and state sales taxes appearing on invoices but tariff components are a no-go. “Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, according to The Wall Street Journal . President Donald Trump toned down the hostile response once he heard Mr Bezos had back down.
“Jeff Bezos is very nice. Terrific. He solved the problem very quickly.
I appreciated what he did,” the WSJ reported. Amazon’s flirtation with detailing tariff components on cheap Haul transactions coincides with the abolition of a tariff exemption on cheap Chinese imports known as de minimus starting on May 2. Ditching the exemption puts pressure on Chinese bargain online retailers such as Alibaba and Temu, but it also impacts Amazon which sources a large proportion of its cheap goods from China.
Punchbowl News quoted a single source for its April 29 report on Amazon’s alleged move, but Amazon quickly denied going beyond an initial consideration of the idea. “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 company told The Verge .
The editor-in-chief of The Verge, Nilay Patel , launched a blistering attack on Mr Bezos, saying he lacked courage by not standing up to Mr Trump. “Jeff Bezos now has no choice but to insist that Amazon display tariffs on its website now. None.
Zero. “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.”.
