Amazon May Start Showing Tariff-Related Price Increases to Customers
Amazon and the White House are currently not getting along .
A report from Punchbowl News claimed that Amazon was planning to disclose how the tariffs were increasing the prices of products on the site. It seems that when you click on a product, you will see not only the current price, but also the impact of Trump’s northern tariffs on that price tag. The move directly contradicts the idea, often repeated by the administration , that the costs of tariffs are paid by the countries against which tariffs are levied. Amazon, by demonstrating the price increases associated with the tariffs, will make it clear to consumers that they will be the ones making up the difference.
The White House was unhappy when news of this plan became public. In fact, the White House was furious . During a Tuesday morning press briefing, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt criticized Amazon based solely on Punchbowl’s reporting, calling the proposal a “hostile and political act” on the company’s part. She questioned why Amazon didn’t do the same with what she believes were price increases due to the Biden administration’s impact on inflation. Leavitt also stated, “This is one more reason why Americans should buy American.”
The plan was to only impact Amazon Haul and not the main Amazon site.
As it turns out, Punchbowl’s sources didn’t have the full story, or the story changed after the White House’s ire. According to Jeff Stein , chief economics reporter for The Washington Post, an Amazon spokesman now says the company never planned to post the price tag on the company’s main website; rather, Amazon Haul was considering including import price duties on some products.
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Amazon Haul is the “ultra-low” section of the Amazon marketplace. Instead of displaying every product a company sells, Amazon Haul focuses solely on products costing $20 or less. (Amazon says most products are actually $10 or less.)
If Amazon is truly only considering these tariff tags on Amazon Haul products, that suggests much less scope for implementation than Punchbowl or the White House have made the situation out to be. The Trump administration will likely reject any claim that consumers are paying more for groceries because of tariffs, but Amazon Haul is fairly hidden and is currently in beta testing. (Personally, I had never heard of this service before this report.)
Of course, it’s unclear whether this was the plan all along or whether Amazon is doing damage control. The company may be trying to placate the White House by not claiming that Punchbowl misrepresented the whole story by shifting blame to a niche section of its market, but it has been considering including this rate transparency on the main site all along. Trump reportedly called Jeff Bezos this morning to “complain” about Amazon’s plans, so it’s not hard to imagine the company changing course after the White House’s negative response. However, this is speculation and we will have to see how the company reacts in the future.
How will these rate tags work?
Punchbowl’s report states that Amazon will “show how much of a product’s cost is determined by tariffs—right next to the product’s total listed price.”
This would be the easiest way to do it: you could see the total cost of the product, the amount the price has increased due to the tariffs, and then do the math yourself to determine what that product would have cost if the Trump administration had not imposed those tariffs in the first place.
You can understand why the White House is unhappy.
How to track price increases due to tariffs
However, you don’t have to wait for Amazon to add these labels to see the effect of the tariffs. If you use a price tracking tool , you can track how prices have changed on the site over time. The tool won’t be able to confirm without a doubt that the price increase was due to tariffs, but if something unexpectedly jumps in price this spring with no other clear explanation, it won’t be too hard to believe that tariffs have something to do with it.