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The White House accused Amazon of committing a “hostile and political act” after a report said the e-commerce company was planning to inform customers how much Donald Trump’s tariffs would cost them as they shopped.
The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, was responding to a report in Punchbowl News, which, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported that Amazon would begin displaying on its site how much the tariffs had increased the prices of individual products, breaking out the figure from the total listed price.
“Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?” Leavitt asked during a press briefing.
Amazon’s online marketplace has seen prices rise across the board since Trump announced sweeping tariffs at the start of April, particularly on China, where many products listed on Amazon.com ship from. In response, the company has pressured its third-party sellers to shoulder the burden of the extra import costs rather than pass them on to customers. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“This is another reason why Americans should buy American,” Leavitt continued, though Amazon is headquartered in Seattle.
Amazon moved to distance itself from the report, saying the idea had been considered by Amazon Haul, the company’s recently launched low-cost shopping hub, but had been rejected.
“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,” said Tim Doyle, Amazon spokesperson.
Online shopping has been upended by Trump’s trade policies. The day before the White House took aim at Amazon, discount retailers Temu and Shein, which ship from China, began displaying 145% “import charges” in customers’ totals to reflect the surcharge on Chinese goods.
Asked if the strident statement from the White House signaled a rift between Trump and Amazon’s billionaire founder, who stepped down as CEO in 2021 and donated $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund earlier this year, Leavitt said: “I will not speak to the president’s relationships with Jeff Bezos.”
Bezos and Trump endured a strained relationship during the president’s initial run for the White House. During the 2016 campaign, the Amazon founder publicly argued that some of Trump’s rhetoric, including threats to lock up his political opponents, damaged democracy, while Trump accused the tech giant of failing to pay enough taxes.
Scrutiny of Trump’s first term by the Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos, angered the US president. He was further infuriated by Bezos’ apparent refusal to intervene. In a bid to pile pressure on Amazon, Trump threatened to block federal aid for the US Postal Service unless it hiked shipping rates for online firms.
Since Trump’s return to power, however, Bezos has taken a noticeably different approach to the president. He attended Trump’s inauguration, alongside a string of other Big Tech founders, and Amazon donated $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund.
Days before last November’s presidential election, the Washington Post announced its editorial board would not endorse a candidate for the first time in more than three decades – prompting an exodus of subscribers. Bezos insisted the move was a “principled decision” and claimed that “inadequate planning” had led to the last-minute call.
The Post went a step further in February, announcing an overhaul of the newspaper’s opinion section to focus its output “in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets”, Bezos said. The decision angered readers and staff and prompted the resignation of the opinions editor, David Shipley.
His actions drew a sharp rebuke from Marty Baron, the highly regarded former editor of the Washington Post, who told the Guardian that Bezos’ plan for the newspaper’s opinion section amounted to a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression” that had left him “appalled”.
Amazon, meanwhile, is reportedly paying some $40m to license a documentary on the life of first lady Melania Trump.
