Jeff Bezos Got Called Into the Principal's Office by Trump Regarding Displaying Tariff Costs

Who could have predicted that the word of the year for 2025 would be tariffs? It's probably safe to assume that most Americans never used it prior to President Donald Trump taking office for the second time in January 2025. Things really took a turn when the president announced that April 2 would be Liberation Day because that's when he revealed his "reciprocal" tariffs, which placed a 10 percent baseline tax on all imports as well as blistering tariffs on dozens of nations, per PBS.

After that, President Trump added and subtracted tariffs when it suited him. This caused incredible fluctuations in the stock market, which resulted in huge losses for millions of Americans. Due to these uncertain times, many businesses have entered into a sort of purgatory because they are unable to plan ahead. Amazon attempted to explain its ever-changing prices by displaying tariff costs on its website. Did that stick? Here's what we know.

The rumors about Amazon adding the tariff charges to their website were first reported by Punchbowl News, which said the e-commerce company would "display how much of an item’s cost is derived from tariffs — right next to the product’s total listed price." This was done to show customers how much the tariffs are affecting the prices. There is a 145 percent tariff on China, which is where many Americans get their goods.

After seeing the reporting, President Trump gave his good buddy Jeff Bezos a call and shipped him a piece of his mind, per NBC News. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Amazon's decision is a "hostile and political act" during a press briefing. "Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?" she asked. In December 2021, inflation "jumped at its fastest pace in nearly 40 years," per AP News, due to recovery from the pandemic recession.

A few hours after President Trump spoke with Bezos, Amazon revealed that this was just a big mix-up. Tim Doyle, a spokesperson from Amazon, told CNBC they considered "displaying import charges on items sold via its site for ultradiscount items, but that the plan 'was never approved and not going to happen.'"

The company further clarified that had this happened, it would only have affected all items sold on Haul, which is Amazon's response to Temu. Amazon Haul offers a wide variety of products that cost less than $20, in an effort to compete with the Chinese company. After speaking with Bezos, the president said he was "very nice, he was terrific," and is a "good guy." An unnamed White House official told CNN that Trump was initially very angry at Amazon because a billion-dollar company shouldn't pass the buck.