Online retail behemoth Amazon pushed back against reporting from Punchbowl News on Tuesday that the company was planning to list tariff costs next to the total price of products on its website.
The Trump administration’s tariffs against dozens of countries (including a whopping 145 percent tariff on all goods from China) will undoubtedly lead to higher prices for consumers, a point that several major retailers made known during the 2024 presidential campaign. The announcement that Amazon was planning to show consumers just how much tariffs would raise the costs of specific goods prompted praise from some political commentators — and a scathing response from the White House — before the company denied that it was considering the idea.
The report was especially surprising given the many ways that Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, one of the richest people on the planet, has sought to gain favor with the administration, including blocking the editorial staff of The Washington Post (which he owns) from publishing an endorsement of Donald Trump’s 2024 election opponent Kamala Harris and stifling other criticism of Trump from writers and cartoonists at the publication. Bezos has also scaled back corporate promises to protect the rights of Black and LGBTQ people, falling in line with the White House’s campaign to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion practices in both the public and private sectors.
“Amazon doesn’t want to shoulder the blame for the cost of President Donald Trump’s trade war. So the e-commerce giant will soon show how much Trump’s tariffs are adding to the price of each product, according to a person familiar with the plan,” the report from Punchbowl stated.
Victoria Brownworth, a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist, lauded the supposed plan to disclose tariff costs.
“Every outlet should do this,” Brownworth wrote.
Political commentator Shea Jordan Smith also praised the idea.
“Amazon showing shoppers exactly how much Trump’s tariffs are costing them isn’t political — it’s transparency,” he wrote on X.
The White House reacted swiftly to the report, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blasting the company on behalf of Trump.
“I just got off the phone with the president about the Amazon announcement. This is a hostile and political act by Amazon,” Leavitt claimed.
She then accused the company of hypocrisy because it didn’t list price increases due to inflation following the pandemic, baselessly claiming that Amazon’s plan to disclose tariff costs was “not really a surprise” because it was supposedly partnering “with a Chinese propaganda arm.”
After the Punchbowl report was published, Trump called Bezos on Tuesday morning to express his anger that tariff costs could be included in the price breakdowns of Amazon purchases.
Amazon later claimed that the reporting from Punchbowl was false, with a spokesperson for the company saying that Amazon Haul, a “budget friendly” part of the shopping website, had “considered listing import charges on certain products.”
“This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties,” the spokesperson added.
But Diego Areas Munhoz, Punchbowl News’s tech reporter, partially disputed Amazon’s claim.
“Amazon is saying the tariff cost idea was restricted to its Amazon Haul service. Important to point out, Amazon Haul is hosted on Amazon.com,” Areas Munhoz wrote on X. “It’s the first tab on the left on the main website.”
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