White House officials held a press conference Tuesday morning to talk about the economy, as Americans get extremely nervous about the tariffs on China that are starting to cause prices to rise. And while Trump’s goons put on a brave face, it was clear they’re in panic mode. In fact, one question about Amazon really got them flustered.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted things were all going according to plan, even though Americans are starting to see 145% surcharges added to their shipments from Chinese retailers like Temu, Shein, and AliExpress. But when a reporter asked about a report from Punchbowl on Tuesday that Amazon would be listing tariff costs when consumers check out, Leavitt flipped her lid.
“This is a hostile and political act by Amazon,” said Leavitt. “Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?”
Amazon probably didn’t add an “inflation” surcharge during the Biden years because that’s not a real thing that any normal person thinks of doing. But it’s very easy to add a tariff line because we know exactly how much that is going to cost consumers. In the case of Trump’s 145% tariff on goods from China, it’s going to be 145%.
Leavitt went on to hold up a printout of a Reuters article from 2021 titled “Amazon Partnered With China Propaganda Arm.” The article notes that Amazon was marketing a collection of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speeches and writings on its online store in China about two years earlier. The crux of the story is that Amazon disabled reviews in the country after Chinese officials complained about negative reviews and added a page called China Books that promoted materials favorable to the government.
Leavitt didn’t really provide any context for why she was talking about this story from years earlier, but clearly intended for the headline to be damning in its insinuations about collaboration with the Chinese government.
But it looks like that report about Amazon listing tariffs wasn’t true. Or, at least things changed after the story broke. Reached for comment on Tuesday after the White House press conference, Amazon told Gizmodo that it won’t actually be adding a tariff line item to purchases.
“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,” Amazon spokesperson Tim Doyle said in a statement.
CNN reports that Trump called Amazon founder Jeff Bezos after the Punchbowl news story landed Tuesday morning. A White House official told CNN that Trump was “pissed” adding “Why should a multi-billion-dollar company pass off costs to consumers?”
Well, that part seems obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of economics. If the cost of importing goods is going up 145%, Amazon isn’t going to just eat that entire charge. They’re going to raise prices for consumers. White House advisor Stephen Miller was asked about the Amazon pricing controversy on Fox News and tried to play it off like as no big deal.
“I’ll just take Amazon’s statement at face value, which is that they said this is an idea that had been discussed, was not being actioned, and now we can take heart in knowing that they formally rejected the idea,” Miller said.
Miller was then asked about whether Trump had indeed called Bezos and the White House advisor laughed it off, insisting that things worked out just fine in the end.
ROBERTS: I understand there might’ve been a phone call from the president to Jeff Bezos on this this morning
STEPHEN MILLER: I have no news to add on it. All I can say is things worked out exactly as they should.
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 29, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Trump later confirmed that he had spoken with Bezos earlier in the day, saying, “Jeff Bezos was very nice, he was terrific. He solved the problem very quickly and he did the right thing and he’s a good guy.”
The consumer confidence index fell this month for the fifth straight month in a row, according to the Associated Press. And if you take a quick look at the calendar, five months ago was November, the same month Trump was elected.
Bessent was asked Tuesday about supply chains that are expected to break down in the coming weeks, as ships from China have basically stopped leaving for U.S. ports. But the Treasury Secretary insisted that everything would be fine since he imagined businesses have already planned ahead for any disruptions.
“I wouldn’t think that we would have supply chain shocks,” said Bessent. “And I think retailers that have managed their inventory in front of this. I speak to dozens of companies sometimes daily, but definitely weekly, and they know that President Trump is committed to fair trade and have planned accordingly.”
Bessent has made this same argument repeatedly in recent days. He asserts that there won’t actually be supply chain shocks because every business knew this was coming and should’ve planned appropriately. That argument ignores the fact that it’s difficult to just find a new supplier for inexpensive Chinese goods in less than a month, if you’re able to do that at all by some miracle.
Adidas warned Tuesday it would soon be raising prices on goods for Americans. And some companies are already doing layoffs over the economic situation, with shipping company UPS announcing Tuesday it was cutting 20,000 jobs from its 490,000-person workforce. The company said in a regulatory filing that it was “in connection with our anticipation of lower volumes” from Amazon, the company’s largest customer.
Trump has claimed that he’s signing new trade deals with every country, given the fact that even America’s closest allies have been hit with a 10% tariff. But there’s scant evidence that any trade deal is anywhere close to being completed. Bessent keeps teasing the idea that deals are almost done with Japan and India, but the timing on when those could be done isn’t clear at all. Trump has also said he’s negotiating with China, but that doesn’t seem to be true either.
“Let me make it clear one more time that China and the U.S. are not engaged in any consultation or negotiation on tariffs,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Monday, according to CNBC.
Fox News, Trump’s favorite TV channel, has done its best to sell the idea that these tariffs are good, but even there, we’re starting to see some dissent. Dana Perino, a host on the network and former press secretary for the White House under George W. Bush, said on Tuesday that she doesn’t like tariffs and is worried about how small businesses are going to do under them.
“I think that it’s one thing as a consumer to say I will be able to accept the pain,” Perino said. “But the small- and medium-sized business owner, who right now are looking at the possibility of losing everything that they’ve worked for in the next four to six weeks, is very real.”
There’s understandably been a fixation on tariffs this week, as Americans are starting to learn about how they will soon pay more for just about everything. But Trump is also working hard to make the United States an unlivable hellhole in other ways. The president’s regime is terrorizing immigrant communities, jailing political dissidents like Rumeysa Ozturk, who did nothing more than write an op-ed against the war in Gaza, and kicking pediatric cancer patients out of the country without their medications.
Trump’s FBI also arrested a judge in Wisconsin last week for allegedly not doing enough to help ICE detain an immigrant in her courtroom. And the president signed an executive order on Monday that experts warn will further militarize American police.
A recent poll from PRRI shows that 52% of Americans agree with the statement that Trump is a “dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.” The president’s approval rating is in the toilet, and Trump’s right-hand oligarch, Elon Musk, is getting similar marks, with just 35% of Americans approving of his obliteration of the government with DOGE.
Yes, Trump is hurting everything good about America. But at least everything’s going to be much more expensive soon. America truly shot itself in the foot by electing Trump again. And with Trump promising to stay in office illegally after 2028, there’s no telling when the madness may end.
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