Amazon: Never considered listing import charges on our main site
Heads-up: Amazon is denying that it planned to display tariff costs on its main website, reports Jeff Stein of The Washington Post.
The retailer is saying that its Amazon Haul store, which sells low-cost items had considered listing import charges on “certain products”.
“Nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties,” the company added, shortly after the White House accused it of a ‘hostile and political’ act (see earlier post).
New — Amazon Spox now saying this was never under consideration for the main Amazon website. Says Amazon Haul has considered listing import price duties on certain products https://t.co/Uc4WpWRL3s
— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) April 29, 2025
Amazon statement: “The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store has considered listing import charges on certain products. This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties.”
— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) April 29, 2025
Key events
Closing post
Time to recap.
Amazon has denied that it planned to show the cost of new US tariffs on products on sale on its website, after being heavily criticised by the White House.
An Amazon spokesperson has insisted that it never considered listing tariffs on its main retail site and nothing was implemented on any company site, saying:
“The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products. This was never approved and (is) not going to happen.”
Amazon commented after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed the plan to disclose tariff costs was “a hostile and political act by Amazon,” and “Another reason why Americans should buy American”.
Leavitt responded to a question from the media about a report on Punchbowl News that claimed Amazon will soon display how much of an item’s cost is derived from tariffs.
That report prompted president Trump to phone Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, to complain, CNN reports.
She was speaking at a press briefing today, where Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that China risks losing millions of jobs unless it agrees a deal to cut tariffs soon.
Bessent told reporters:
“I think that over time we will see that the Chinese tariffs are unsustainable for China.
I’ve seen some very large numbers over the past few days that show if these numbers stay on, Chinese could lose 10 million jobs very quickly. And even if there is a drop in the tariffs that they could lose 5 million jobs.”
Bessent also said that negotations with India, South Korea and Japan are progressing well.
But we’ve seen more signs today of the economic harm caused by Donald Trump’s trade war:
Companies have also been reporting the impact of new tariffs:
Economics professor Justin Wolfers suggests, tongue-in-cheek, that the White House should show Amazon some gratitude!
Amazon offers free advertising for the Administration’s signature initiative, and the White House regards this as hostile? https://t.co/bkIxOjqZaE
— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) April 29, 2025
When I make smart decisions that make the world a better place, I’m usually proud of it, and want to tell everyone who’ll listen.
— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) April 29, 2025
Here’s a video clip of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt laying into Amazon:
FTSE 100 posts longest winning streak in over eight years
Back in London, the stock market has recorded its longest run of gains in over eight years.
The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares rose by 46 points, or 0.55% today, to end at 84,63 points, its highest close in three weeks.
This means the Footsie has now risen for 12 days in a row, beating the 11-day winning streak in December 2019 (when there was a rally after Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party won the general election).
It’s the longest run since January 2017, when the FTSE 100 managed a 14-day run of gains.
HOWEVER, this still leaves the Footsie down 1.3% in April – it hasn’t quite recovered all its losses earlier this month, when the trade war exploded.
CNN: Trump called Bezos to complain
CNN’s White House reporter, Alayna Treene, has learned that president Trump phoned Jeff Bezos to complain that Amazon reportedly planned to show the cost of US tariffs on its site.
That call was made shortly after Trump was made aware of the story on Punchbowl – and before Amazon insisted the plan was never considered for its main site.
Scoop: Trump called Amazon founder Jeff Bezos Tuesday morning to complain about reports that his company was considering displaying the cost U.S. tariffs next to prices for certain products on its website, two senior White House officials told @CNN
— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) April 29, 2025
The call came shortly after one of the senior officials phoned the president to inform him of the story
The controversy comes as Trump & Bezos have grown increasingly close in recent months. Bezos often visits the West Wing when in Washington to meet with the president
— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) April 29, 2025
Soon after the call between Trump & Bezos, an Amazon spokesman released a statement clarifying the move wasn’t considered for the main Amazon site but was considered for Amazon Haul
The spox later sent CNN a revised stmt, adding: “This was never approved and not going to happen”
— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) April 29, 2025
Amazon: Suggestion of showing tariffs was ‘never approved’
Amazon are insisting that while its Amazon Haul team considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products, this was “never approved and not going to happen.”
A company spokesperson says:
“The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products. This was never approved and is not going to happen.”
Investors Observer has calculated that California is the state most exposed to the US-China trade war.
California importing almost $123 billion worth of goods from China in 2024 – almost triple the amount imported by the next state, and 25% of imports to the state.
It’s followed by Illinois, Texas and Tennessee.
Severin Carrell
Meanwhile in Scotland, trade union leaders have accused the Scottish and UK governments of betraying thousands of oil and supply chain workers after PetroIneos announced on Tuesday that production at Scotland’s only oil refinery had ended.
PetroIneos, jointly only by Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos and PetroChina, announced late last year it was phasing out oil refining at Grangemouth, arguing the aged refinery, the oldest of six across the UK, was haemorrhaging money and no longer viable.
It said the first phase of more than 400 direct job losses would take effect on 30 April, but the announcement that refining had totally ended on Tuesday morning surprised unions meeting in Dundee for the Scottish TUC’s annual congress.
Roz Foyer, the STUC’s general secretary, told delegates the closure was symbolic of the failure by the UK’s governments to protect workers and the wider economy from the transition to a low carbon economy.
She said John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, and Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, both of whom addressed this year’s congress, were full of “warm words and platitudes” yet seemed powerless. “The failure to keep the refinery open is an inexcusable and unforgiveable failure [that] cannot be ignored,” she said, to applause from delegates.
PetroIneos has spent £50m on an expanded fuel terminal, importing petrol and diesel from other refineries, protecting around 70 jobs. Even so, the union Unite fears that around 2,822 jobs in the wider supply chain and amongst local businesses will be affected by the refinery’s closure.
Scottish union leaders are angry that UK ministers intervened to stop British Steel’s Scunthorpe steel furnaces from being shut down, but failed to nationalise Grangemouth.
Chris Hamilton, the Unite convenor at Grangemouth oil refinery, who was at the congress, said they knew refinery production would end around now.
“It doesn’t make today any less devastating and any less emotional, because ultimately, what we’ve campaigned for for the last 18 months was to continue operations at the refinery, to then invest and then transition to future stuff.
“18 months ago, when this announcement was first made, it certainly wasn’t inevitable. Look what’s happened at Scunthorpe: the closure of that site clearly wasn’t inevitable. So for us, if there was a will, there’d be a way. But ultimately for Grangemouth it looks like there’s not been a will, and therefore there has not been a way. And today Scotland loses its last refinery.”
Global commodity prices tipped to fall in 2025
Heather Stewart
Global commodity prices are set to fall by 12% this year and continue declining in 2026, putting pressure on the finances of many developing countries, the World Bank warns today.
The Bank’s experts expect the slowdown in global growth resulting from escalating trade tensions, to outweigh the inflationary impact of the tariffs.
Oil prices are expected to drop particularly sharply, as the Opec+ producers’ cartel keeps output high in a bid to maintain market share. The Bank is predicting an average Brent Crude oil price of $64 a barrel for 2025 – down from the $73 it was predicting before the tariffs were introduced.
The report’s authors point out that the downturn, induced by US policy, is only the latest shock to hit commodity markets in what they call, “a remarkably turbulent decade so far”.
The Bank’s deputy chief economist, Ayhan Kose, warned that with many emerging economies already in debt distress, plunging commodity prices are likely to make life harder for those that depend heavily on exports.
He said:
“These countries already went through a series of shocks over the last five years. So in terms of having fiscal space, they are not in in a good shape.”
The report also warns of what it calls, “marked downside risks to the outlook for global economic growth amid rising trade tensions, and therefore also to commodity demand”.
To quantify these risks, the World Bank’s economists take the gloomiest 10% of growth forecasts from other experts. If things get this bad, it reckons, the Brent Crude oil price would drop another 7%, to $59 a barrel.
Another economic blow today – Americans’ confidence in the economy slumped for the fifth straight month to the lowest level in five years.
The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell 7.9 points in April to 86, its lowest reading since May 2020, early in the Covid-19 pandemic.
Worryingly, the survey’s Expectations Index – which measures consumers’ short-term economic outlook – dropped to the lowest level since October 2011, to levels that usually signals a recession ahead.
Here we go on this week’s data storm. The Conference Board consumer confidence survey fell sharply to 86 in April. It is off 19.3 points in the past 3 months. Just shy of the recession threshold of 20. Unless the trade war cools off very (very) soon, recession appears dead-ahead.
— Mark Zandi (@Markzandi) April 29, 2025
Amazon’s share price has recovered most of its early losses, after it denied planning to disclose the cost of tariffs on the goods it sells on its main site.
Amazon’s stock is now down just 0.5% today – they were initially down 2.2% in premarket trading after the White House let rip.
US job vacancies fall
Back in the US economy, there are more worrying signs that America’s labor market may be weakening.
The total number of job openings at US companies dropped last month to 7.192m, according to the latest JOLTS report, down from 7.48m in February, and almost 8.1m in March 2024.
That suggests a slowdown in hiring in March, a month in which Donald Trump imposed tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico.
⚠️ Just In: U.S. Job openings in March tumbled by 288,000 to 7.192 million.
That was the lowest since 2020 and much worse than the 7.490 million expected.
February job openings were revised down from 7.568 million to 7.480 million.
The weak JOLTS reports supports the view of… pic.twitter.com/cSXzTFvfgb
— Jesse Cohen (@JesseCohenInv) April 29, 2025
You can read the original report that sparked the White House’s ire here, on Punchbowl News.
It claimed:
Amazon doesn’t want to shoulder the blame for the cost of President Donald Trump’s trade war.
So the e-commerce giant will soon show how much Trump’s tariffs are adding to the price of each product, according to a person familiar with the plan.
Amazon: Never considered listing import charges on our main site
Heads-up: Amazon is denying that it planned to display tariff costs on its main website, reports Jeff Stein of The Washington Post.
The retailer is saying that its Amazon Haul store, which sells low-cost items had considered listing import charges on “certain products”.
“Nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties,” the company added, shortly after the White House accused it of a ‘hostile and political’ act (see earlier post).
New — Amazon Spox now saying this was never under consideration for the main Amazon website. Says Amazon Haul has considered listing import price duties on certain products https://t.co/Uc4WpWRL3s
— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) April 29, 2025
Amazon statement: “The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store has considered listing import charges on certain products. This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties.”
— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) April 29, 2025
It’s not hard to understand why the White House is cross with Amazon.
Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the tariffs he imposes on imports are paid by other countries, despite economists pointing out that actually US businesses – and ultimately consumers – stump up the money when goods arrive.
If consumers are seeing a ‘tariff cost’ on their Amazon orders, they might realise how the system works.
Gavin Baker, CIO of investment firm Atreides Management, suggests other companies may adopt the same plan too:
Almost every retailer will follow Amazon and itemize the “tariff costs” anywhere a price is shown – on websites, price tags and receipts. Everywhere.
It is not political – it is just corporations protecting their own brands and acting in their own competitive best interests.…
— Gavin Baker (@GavinSBaker) April 29, 2025
