AMAZON will reportedly display the cost of Donald Trump’s tariffs to consumers on its website.
The White House condemned the reported plans as a “hostile and political act”.
The online shopping giant will display the cost of tariffs on products listed on its website, to show customers why things may be more expensive than before, according to Punchbowl News.
Items will show how much of a product’s cost comes from tariffs next to the total price, the site reports.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt (below) said she had discussed the plan with Trump, and said: “This is a hostile and political act by Amazon.”
She added: “Why didn't Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level of 40 years?”
The press secretary also hit out at Amazon’s ties with China, pointing to a report from 2021 which said the company had partnered with China International Book Trading Corp, described as a propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party.
The report also said the company had complied with orders from Beijing to remove customer reviews and ratings on products sold in China.
Leavitt said: “This is another reason why Americans should buy American”.
The development points to fractures in Trump’s winning coalition which saw him re-elected last year.
He gained the support of many working-class Americans with promises to revitalise US manufacturing by taking on China, while also gaining the support of billionaires who do business with Beijing.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos appeared alongside big teach leaders Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk at Trump’s inauguration.
Musk took a key role in the US president’s efforts to slash federal government spending, heading the Department for Government Efficiency (Doge).
Musk has since announced that he would scale down the amount of time he spends at Doge, after profits at his electric car firm collapsed.
Trump put a pause on his global tariff regime after it sent markets into meltdown, with stock exchanges recording their biggest daily losses since Covid, but a baseline 10% tariff remains on most countries.
China, however, still faces a full-blown trade war with America, with total tariffs on the country standing at an average of 124.1%, despite exemptions for some vital computing components such as semiconductors.
