The New York Times reports that after reports emerged yesterday that Amazon would begin displaying “the exact cost of tariff-related price increases alongside its products,” and Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, accused Amazon of being “hostile and political,” Amazon said the initiative “was never approved and is not going to happen.”
According to the story, “An Amazon spokesman said the company had considered a similar idea on part of its site, Amazon Haul, which competes with Temu, a Chinese retailer. Temu primarily ships directly to consumers and has begun displaying ‘import charges’ to reflect the end of a customs loophole that had exempted low-priced items from tariffs.
“‘Teams discuss ideas all the time,’ the spokesman, Ty Rogers, said in a statement.” Rogers reiterated that this idea would not be implemented.
Bloomberg reports that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent “said that any move to highlight tariffs was unfair when the costs of policies implemented by other administrations — including regulations — weren’t broken out.
“‘The big tax on consumers that goes unnoticed is deregulation or regulation, and we are deregulating and bringing that down,’ Bessent said. ‘So you know, from a household income point of view, we would expect real purchasing increases that we’ve seen over the first 100 days, and we would expect that to accelerate.’
“A CNN poll released this week showed 59% of the public believe Trump’s policies have made the economy worse, with six in 10 believing his efforts have increased their cost of living. Nearly seven in 10 of survey respondents say they believe an economic recession is somewhat likely in the next year.”
The Washington Post reports that “President Donald Trump called Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Tuesday morning to complain about (the) news report … Talking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, Trump praised Bezos and said the Amazon founder had done ‘the right thing.’
“‘Jeff Bezos is very nice. Terrific,’ Trump said, according to a pool report. ‘He solved the problem very quickly. He did the right thing. Good guy’.”
KC’s View:
There are two possibilities here. (Probably more than two, but I’m going to boil it down to just a pair.)
One, Amazon now is being open and transparent, and never seriously considered a site-wide display of tariff-related price increases.
Or, it did consider such a move, and backed off when it ran into the White House buzz saw. (Amazon may have floated the idea to members of the news media on purpose, hoping to gauge exactly how virulent the political backlash would be.)
it doesn’t really matter which scenario played out, except that in the latter case, Amazon would have been displaying a high level of corporate cowardice.
I’ll let you decide for yourselves which possibility actually took place.
Let me repeat here some of what I said yesterday when commenting on the breaking news.
Tariffs on these products are a tax paid for US consumers. End of story. There may be companies that want to play three-card-monte with the costs, like not accepting tariff-related price increases from suppliers. But this only endangers companies in the supply chain by asking them to absorb all these extra costs. Which could, conceivably, put some US companies out of business and/or put some US workers out of their jobs.
Tariffs, when assessed, have to be paid. They are integrated into the cost of various items.
If Amazon actually did plan to break out tariff costs, it would just be a move to be forthright. It should enable its suppliers to label very clearly why imported products cost more. Rather than being a sin, this should be lauded as a virtue. All Amazon would be doing is enabling transparency. You know, being an advocate for its shoppers.
These are the kinds of statements that American food and beverage retailers should be making. (By the way, I have been consistent about this – I think all retailers should be transparent about the cost of goods. It isn’t just tariff-related.)
Rather than letting Amazon take all the heat for this, Walmart and Target and Kroger and Albertsons and every other food retailer around the country ought to jump on the bandwagon. They ought to say very clearly that they are going to do the same thing – not because of political opposition to any party or White House , but because it is a public policy that works against the very fabric of their businesses and the interests of their shoppers.
And their trade associations should do the same.
This is not a time for silence. This is a time to make some noise.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page – hardly a hotbed of liberal thought – agreed:
“The public could have used Amazon’s price transparency. Tariffs are taxes, and it’s helpful to know how policy choices affect final prices. Some shoppers might say the additional cost is worth it to support Mr. Trump’s policy. But there’s no denying that they’re paying, and everyone is better off knowing how much.
“Ride-sharing platforms understand this dynamic. After each trip, riders get an itemized bill that shows how much of their fare went to tolls and political fees. So do hotels when they list local tax.
“Mr. Trump likes to say foreign exporters bear all the costs of tariffs, with none passed on to customers. Economists disagree, as in a 2020 study showing that final consumers bore the burden of Mr. Trump’s first-term tariffs.
“Ms. Leavitt accused Amazon of playing politics selectively, asking why the company didn’t propose a similar feature to display the cost of President Biden’s inflation. She’s right that businesses might have protested more about the cost of progressive governance. But the comparison overlooks the unique simplicity of tariff costs. Like taxes, tariffs often add a precise dollar figure to a sticker price. Voters who pay little attention to the macroeconomy will notice a direct markup on items they buy.
“Consumers are already feeling the tariff pain, whether or not retailers quantify it on their websites. White House denials won’t change that, but repealing the tariffs would.”
And Fast Company observed:
“By jumping to condemn Amazon’s potential new feature, the White House as good as broadcasted that it’s worried about companies exposing how much the president’s tariffs are costing consumers, and it’s prepared to name and shame them to prevent that from happening.
“But its heavy-handed reaction also points to how, with just a few design tweaks, private companies could play against the administration’s self-inflicted political weak spot to gain consumer trust and influence the public messaging game on tariffs, if they’re brave enough. (Amazon wasn’t, and Trump praised founder Jeff Bezos as having done ‘the right thing’ following the company’s statement.)”
Fast Company also wrote that “from a consumer’s perspective, it’s difficult to keep up with how each company is being hit by the tariffs—and what the actual scale of incoming price increases might look like for everyday goods like toilet paper and groceries without direct comparisons at the point of sale. This trade policy decision has had costly consequences, and Amazon’s proposal could have been a simple, user-first solution to show the public the tariff receipts.
“Major retailers like Target and Walmart could clear up some of the confusion by doing exactly what Amazon has since declined to do: add a label to online listings (and even in-store items) spelling out how much Trump’s tariffs have impacted the sale price for consumers.
“This simple gesture could serve as an effective political tool to shape public perception and shift policy on a key issue. And for brands, it would also communicate to consumers that price transparency matters more than the president’s whims.”
Exactly.
The White House response tells us more about the White House than Amazon. Or tariffs. It would have been refreshing had the response been, “We respectfully disagree with Amazon and any such move in this direction. We look forward to engaging with leadership there, and explaining why their decisions are misguided and not in the best interests of the American people.”
But that’s not the approach the White House decided to take.
What would the White House suggest is the reasonable alternative to being honest and transparent with American citizens/consumers? I’d be willing to buy Bessent’s suggestion that this move wouldn’t be fair because retailers hadn’t been honest about previous price increases for other reasons – except that it sort of acknowledges my whole point, except to to kind of suggest that retailers should start with the next case, with another administration. Transparency has to start somewhere. The specificity of the tariff-related price increases suggests that now is as good a time as any.
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