1 week Ago By Matt Jancer
Nobody seems to know exactly when, who, or how much when it comes to tariff numbers on certain countries. Now that Trump paused tariffs for most countries for 90 days, with the exception of China, automobiles, and a few other specifics, you’d think everything would go sorta, kinda back to normal, the way they sorta, kinda went back to normal for TikTok after the will-he-or-won’t-he soap opera drama of the past three months on its ban has been repeatedly paused, brandished, and paused again.When we woke up this morning, we all thought the tariff rate for China was 125%, as widely reported yesterday.
Then we heard that the actual tariff rate for China was 145%. Well, you know which major retailer sells a whole lot of goods imported from China?Sort of a trick question. You could pull a name out of a hat and the answer would be almost certainly, “Yes, that one!” But the one in mind is Amazon.
It seems Jeff Bezos kissed all that ass for nothing, as oligarchs are increasingly finding out it was unwise to ignore the cautionary tale of Russia’s tycoons and their dictator.Now prices are almost inevitably set to go up across swathes of Amazon. We knew it without needing their CEO, Andy Jassy, to say so.
I’m just surprised that after existing in a whirlpool of Silicon Valley and Washington Beltway spin that we got a straightforward assessment.what amazon’s ceo said“I understand why, I mean, depending on which country you’re in, you don’t have 50% extra margin that you can play with,” Jassy said on Thursday, April 10, when interviewed by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin.Jassy went on to say that the company is still “digesting” Trump’s tariffs, but that he thinks the third-party sellers—which now make up 60% of Amazon’s total products for sale—will raise prices.
“I think they’ll try and pass the cost on,” said Jassy about Amazon’s third-party sellers.“Amazon began to cancel some direct import orders for products sourced by vendors in China this week following Trump’s tariffs announcement,” according to CNBC.Where all this will end, we don’t know.
I don’t know. Jassy doesn’t know. The political party in power doesn’t seem to know.
All we know is that all the ill-thought-out dithering will hurt everyone—red, blue, and apolitical—right in the wallet. Everyone that isn’t a billionaire, that is.The post Amazon CEO Says You Should Expect Prices to Rise appeared first on VICE.
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