Trump Complains, Amazon Drops Tariff Costs Display!

On Tuesday, Amazon announced its decision against showing tariff expenses alongside product prices on its website. This decision followed a complaint by U.S. President Donald Trump to Amazon’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos.

According to a source familiar with Amazon’s plans, as reported by Punchbowl News, the company had intended to reveal the tariff costs included in an item’s price directly beside the product’s total price.

A significant number of Amazon’s products are imported from China. Although U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressed optimism on Sunday about reaching a tariff agreement with China, President Trump has recently intensified global economic concerns by implementing a 145% tariff on goods from China and setting a 10% baseline tariff for other countries.

CNN reported, after discussions with two senior White House officials, that Trump’s call to Bezos occurred shortly after the president was briefed about the Punchbowl story by one of these officials.

“He was obviously upset,” a White House official commented about Trump’s reaction. “Why should consumers bear the cost for a multibillion-dollar company?”

When questioned about his conversation with Bezos, Trump remarked to journalists, “Great. Jeff Bezos was very nice. He was terrific. He resolved the issue quickly, did the right thing, and he’s a good guy.”

During an earlier briefing on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described Amazon’s proposal as “a hostile and political act,” and used it as an argument for why Americans should prefer domestically made products.

Leavitt also questioned why such displays were not implemented during the Biden administration. She highlighted a 2021 Reuters report about Amazon complying with a directive from the Chinese government, which allegedly involved removing customer ratings and reviews in China due to negative feedback on a collection of speeches and writings by President Xi Jinping.

When asked about Bezos’s current political stance, Leavitt declined to comment on his relationship with President Trump.

As reported by CNBC, an Amazon spokesperson clarified that the consideration of listing tariff charges was only discussed for Amazon Haul, the budget-focused section of their site, and not for the main Amazon website. The spokesperson later added that this plan was not approved and would not be implemented.

Following a Bloomberg report that confirmed Amazon’s main site had never planned to display tariff charges, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick expressed his approval of the decision via a social media post, stating, “Good move.”

Prior to Amazon publically dismissing the tariff display initiative, Schumer had urged on the Senate floor that companies should demonstrate how much tariffs add to product prices. “I urge more companies, particularly national retailers competing with Amazon, to adopt this practice. If Amazon can consider revealing why prices are increasing due to tariffs, so should other national retailers,” Schumer stated.

On the same day, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar used this incident as an example of Trump favoring the wealthy, commenting, “If anyone doubted that Trump, Musk, Bezos, and other billionaires are on the same team, today’s events at Amazon confirm it. Bezos quickly backed down from a plan that would have informed Americans about the cost of Trump’s tariffs.”

Casar also criticized Bezos for seeking favorable tax considerations and deals, pointing to Amazon Prime Video’s $40 million deal to license a documentary about Melania Trump and a controversial $1 million donation to the president’s inauguration fund.

As the owner of The Washington Post, Bezos, who is the second wealthiest person globally after Trump adviser Elon Musk, has faced severe backlash for blocking the newspaper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, the Democratic challenger in the 2024 presidential election, and influencing its opinion section to support “personal liberties and free markets.”