Amazon says it won't display tariff costs. It still exploded into a political fight.
Even if Amazon doesn't plan to display the cost of tariffs, the prospect of the company doing so helped reignite a fierce debate in Washington.
Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images
- Amazon is denying that it ever planned to display tariff costs on its website.
- That didn't stop it from becoming a political issue.
- The White House decried the idea, while Chuck Schumer called on other companies to do the same.
Amazon says it never planned to display how much tariffs are contributing to the price of goods on its main website, despite Punchbowl News reporting earlier on Tuesday that the e-commerce giant planned to do so.
But the company's denial didn't come quickly enough to prevent powerful political figures from trying to capitalize on the report.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, called the idea a "hostile and political act," saying Amazon should have displayed cost increases caused by inflation during then-President Joe Biden's term.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, publicly called on other companies to do the same in remarks on the Senate floor.
"To the large businesses that sell to consumers, I say: Show your customers how much tariffs are hurting in their pocketbooks," he said. "People deserve to know the impact tariffs have on their finances."
Doing so, Schumer said, would generate public pressure that would give companies a "chance to get rid of these tariffs, which are so stultifying their ability to move forward."
Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, after initially decrying the reported move, said that it would at least help consumers more easily see which goods are imported from abroad and allow them to buy American-made goods.
Ahhh come on Amazon!!
I was getting so excited about the Amazon tariff tracker so I could avoid buying anything from China!!
Americans want to buy American and you were finally going to give us a way to know which products and companies were selling slave labor made goods from… pic.twitter.com/c1yaW2IAQm— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
