Amazon row proves Trump’s America is an unreliable partner for business
Trump’s overreaction to an unconfirmed story about Amazon including the cost of tariffs on its price labels businesses must now navigate a landscape where loyalty to the President matters more than logic, says Eliot Wilson
It started with Punchbowl News. On Tuesday last week, as Donald Trump was marking 100 days in office, the Capitol Hill-focused news site, quoting an anonymous source, reported that Amazon intended to label its goods to show how much of the total price was due to the new tariff regime.
The White House’s reaction was swift and savage. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt, one of the most zealously loyal and vengeful members of Trump’s inner circle, suggested such a move would only vindicate tariffs and serve to provide “another reason why Americans should buy American”. That was not all.
“This is a hostile and political act by Amazon,” she seethed. “Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?”
Setting aside whether Leavitt thinks that the federal government sets the precise rate of inflation, this encapsulated the world view of the administration, itself derived from the world view of Donald Trump. If something falls short of the obsequious homage the president enjoyed the following day at his increasingly Comical Ali-style cabinet meetings, it is almost by definition a hostile act; and if it is a hostile act it is unfair, untrue and reprehensible.
President Trump later spoke to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The relationship between the two was formerly poor, with “Jeff Bozo” a favourite Trumpian epithet, but Bezos has worked hard to improve their rapport in recent years and was a guest at the President’s second inauguration in January. Amazon had donated $1m to the event, perhaps explaining its chairman’s front-row seat between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
Jeff Bozo
The outcome of the conversation was Bezos claiming that the idea of marking the scale of the tariff on products had only ever been under consideration for Amazon Haul, the company’s new low-cost site, and had never been on the agenda for the main platform. In any event, Amazon had decided not to go ahead with the idea even for Haul. An anonymous source at the company insisted the decision was unconnected to the spat with the White House. Trump himself gave a different impression.
“Jeff Bezos was very nice. He was terrific. He solved the problem very quickly. He did the right thing. He’s a good guy.”
In some ways, the issue of labelling was barely even a squall, insufficiently substantial to survive even a single 24-hour news cycle. These cloudbursts are inevitable, given the furious pace and the equally furious temper with which the administration is currently moving. Anyone who interacts with Trump knows how vital it is to be resilient, to roll with the punches and be prepared to move on. But there are two lessons I think the business world should learn or reinforce.
The first is that Trump is hypersensitive to criticism. We already knew this, but it is worth underlining; despite being in his second term as President of the United States and a billionaire, Donald Trump sees himself as the underdog, always a potential victim of an inexhaustible supply of ill-wishers.
If Amazon Haul had started labelling goods including the cost added by tariffs, Leavitt’s reaction would still have been disproportionate, overwrought and piously paranoid. In the event, an anonymous story on a single website was enough to provoke the kind of fury Richard Nixon reserved for the Kennedys or Daniel Ellsberg.
The implication is clear: anything a business leader says in public which is not fawningly complimentary about the president or the administration could, if the stars are misaligned, cause official condemnation and pressure from the White House to change course.
The second lesson expands from this. Simply, on economic just as much as on diplomatic issues, the federal government is not a reliable partner, because it has taken on the touchy, suspicious personality of its chief executive. It made no difference that Bezos had been a guest at the inauguration or a donor. A perceived slight put him directly in the President’s crosshairs.
The mantra is that business needs certainty. It was the message of Brexit and of the Scottish independence referendum. President Trump needs constant reassurance, sees slights everywhere and will throw people and policies overboard without blinking. Business will have to learn to live without certainty.
Eliot Wilson is a writer and strategic adviser