Amazon’s Jassy says tariffs haven’t meaningfully raised prices — but it’s also a bad idea to say if they did
Amazon, like other retailers, is between Trump and a hard place.
At its annual shareholder meeting yesterday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said tariffs aren’t notably driving up the e-commerce giant’s prices and that they haven’t affected demand.
“We have not seen any attenuation of demand at this point,” Jassy said during the Q&A portion of the event. “We also haven’t yet seen any meaningful average selling price increases.”
We suspect “meaningful” might be doing a lot of work here. A survey earlier this week found that more than half of US companies said they would have to raise prices to make up for tariff hikes. While we don’t know how the tariff wars will ultimately shake out, they are definitely not good for trade or prices.
Amazon obviously sources a lot of goods from China, as do its many third-party sellers, which have already raised prices. Earlier this month in its earnings report, Amazon mentioned tariffs a number of times as risk factors and as something that could affect its guidance.
What’s more likely happening here is that Amazon is trying to avoid the ire of the Trump administration, even if that means a hit to its bottom line. A few days ago, President Trump called on retailers and China to “EAT THE TARIFFS” after Walmart warned it would have to raise prices to combat tariffs, sending the retailer’s stock down.
Amazon has also likely learned a lesson from itself. Last month, when it was reported that Amazon was considering listing tariff costs on its Amazon Haul site, the administration responded by calling the move a “hostile and political act,” and Trump reportedly got on the phone quickly with Amazon founder and chairman Jeff Bezos. Amazon instantly walked back any disparagement of tariffs, and that appears to have carried over into its shareholder meeting.
