WASHINGTON — Amazon is making clear it has no intention to display the added cost to products resulting from President Donald Trump’s tariffs on trading partners around the globe after the White House slammed the potential move on Tuesday.
In a statement, Amazon Spokesperson Tim Doyle said the e-commerce giant had considered at one point listing import charges on certain products featured on Amazon Haul, its experience designed to connect consumers to affordable items at $20 or less, but never moved forward with the plan and has no intention of doing so.
“This was never approved and is not going to happen,” the statement from Doyle reads.
The development came just hours after press secretary Karoline Leavitt referred to the possibility of such a plan, reported earlier Tuesday by Punchbowl News, as “hostile” and “political.” She noted she had just spoke with the president about the potential move.
“This is a hostile and political act by Amazon,“ Leavitt said at an early morning briefing meant to highlight Trump’s economic accomplishments 100 days into his second term. “Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?”
Leavitt accused the e-commerce giant of working with China to push its messaging, referring to a 2021 report from Reuters and holding up a printed picture of the article in what perhaps signaled a readiness to answer a question on the topic. She painted the situation overall as “another reason” consumers should support American companies.
“It's another reason why we are onshoring critical supply chains here at home, to shore up our own critical supply chain and boost our own manufacturing,” Leavitt said.
Leaving the White House in the afternoon to travel to Michigan, Trump told reporters he had a "great" call with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos earlier in the day regarding the reported move.
"He's terrific, he solved the problem very quickly and he did the right thing," Trump said.
The president later added that he "appreciated what he did," referring to Bezos.
Despite Trump promising to lower costs on the campaign trail, some economists and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell have warned that the president’s sweeping tariff agenda could raise prices and has the potential to worsen inflation.
The popular site Temu, operated by a Chinese e-commerce company, has started listing a fee labeled “import charges” when customers check out, as first noted by CNBC. A pop-up on certain products that don’t have the fee explains that there are no import charges for items marked with the “Local Warehouse” tag, which means it is “shipped from within your country or region.”
Trump earlier this month announced a far-reaching plan to place a 10% tariff on goods imported into the U.S. from most countries. Nations with which the U.S. has the worst trade deficits received an even higher so-called “reciprocal” rate individualized to them. The move roiled markets and a week later Trump announced a 90-day pause on the reciprocal levies to allow time for new trade deals to be negotiated with countries but kept in place the 10% flat fee across the board.
The exception to the 90-day delay was China, leading the world’s two largest economies to embark on a trade war that now has the U.S. placing a 145% tariff on goods from the country.
When responding to the reported plan, Leavitt declined to comment on the relationship between Trump and Bezos.
In a move that received significant attention ahead of the 2024 election, Bezos stopped the editorial board of the Washington Post, the nearly 150-year-old outlet that he now owns, from endorsing Trump’s democratic opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris. The two reportedly had dinner together at Trump’s Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, after the election and Bezos attended the president’s inauguration in January.
In an interview with The Atlantic conducted last week and published on Monday, Trump referred to the Amazon founder as “great.”
