Tag Archives: Amazon

CNN: Trump warns America’s businesses: Eat my tariffs, or pay the price

Posted on by
Reply

President Donald Trump is sending a stern warning to Corporate America: He will use his bully pulpit to publicly shame companies that dare to raise prices because of tariffs.

Walmart:

After Walmart last week said it would have to jack up some prices because of high costs of the global trade war, Trump on Saturday responded forcefully in a Truth Social post, demanding Walmart reverse its decision.

“Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,” Trump said. “Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, “EAT THE TARIFFS,” and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!”

The rebuke was the White House’s third such public reprimand of a big American business that discussed the possibility of raising prices because of the steep cost of tariffs.

Amazon:

On April 29, after Amazon reportedly considered displaying an additional tariff charge next to the listed price on its Haul platform, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at a press briefing held up a photo of Amazon Chairman Jeff Bezos and called the move a “hostile and political act.” Trump, whom a senior official described as “pissed,” called Bezos to complain, saying the company’s founder “solved the problem very quickly.”

Amazon said that although it was considering displaying the tariff cost, the plan was ultimately not approved and “not going to happen.”

Mattel:

A week later, on May 6, Trump threatened a 100% tariff on Mattel after the Barbie and Hot Wheels maker said it would have to raise prices. Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz said Trump’s tariffs won’t bring toy manufacturing to America, because toys couldn’t be manufactured in America and still be sold at affordable prices.

“We don’t see that happening,” Kreiz told CNBC after Mattel warned that tariffs will increase toy prices for American consumers.

Trump fired back from the Oval Office, threatening the company and its CEO.

“We’ll put a 100% tariff on his toys, and he won’t sell one toy in the United States, and that’s their biggest market,” Trump said. “I wouldn’t wanna have him as an executive too long.”

Trump = a narcissistic bully suffering a severe case of arrested development!

Trump warns big business: Eat my tariffs, or pay the price | CNN Business
President Trump used his bully pulpit to warn America’s businesses about raising prices due to tariffs.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/19/business/trump-tariffs-price-consumers

Politico: ‘Glaring red flag’: Treasury DOGE team discloses bank stock holdings

Posted on by
Reply

The Trump administration official overseeing the Treasury Department’s massive financial operations reported owning stock in many of the large banks and companies that do business with the department, according to disclosures obtained by POLITICO.

Tom Krause, who is also the lead official for Treasury’s DOGE team, reported hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of shares in a wide range of financial companies, including those that provide services to the unit Krause oversees.

He and two other Treasury DOGE team members — Todd Newnam and Linda Whitridge— also reported owning shares of Intuit, the parent company of TurboTax, which has lobbied heavily against IRS Direct File, a program targeted for elimination by Elon Musk and DOGE.

&c.

Who cares about a little conflict of interest when you’re working for the Grifter-in-Chief?

‘Glaring red flag’: Treasury DOGE team reveals bank holdings
Several former Treasury officials and government ethics experts said the disclosures raise ethics concerns.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/14/treasury-doge-disclosures-bank-stocks-00347972

Washington Post: U.S. pushes nations facing tariffs to approve Musk’s Starlink, cables show

Posted on by
Reply

Some countries have turned to the satellite internet firm in conjunction with trade talks, State Department staffers wrote. The U.S. has a strategic interest in countering Chinese internet providers, but Musk’s role complicates the picture.

Corruption at its finest!

Less than two weeks after President Donald Trump announced 50 percent tariffs on goods from the tiny African nation of Lesotho, the country’s communications regulator held a meeting with representatives of Starlink.

The satellite business, owned by billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, had been seeking access to customers in Lesotho. But it was not until Trump unveiled the tariffs and called for negotiations over trade deals that leaders of the country of roughly 2 million people awarded Musk’s firm the nation’s first-ever satellite internet service license, slated to last for 10 years.

The decision drew a mention in an internal State Department memo obtained by The Washington Post, which states: “As the government of Lesotho negotiates a trade deal with the United States, it hopes that licensing Starlink demonstrates goodwill and intent to welcome U.S. businesses.”

Lesotho is far from the only country that has decided to assist Musk’s firm while trying to fend off U.S. tariffs. The company reached distribution deals with two providers in India in March and has won at least partial accommodations with Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam, although this is probably not a comprehensive count.

Hopefully there will be some prosecutions after the 2028 elections!

U.S. pushes nations facing tariffs to approve Musk’s Starlink, cables show
Some countries have turned to the satellite internet firm in preparation for trade talks, State Department staffers wrote. The U.S. has a strategic interest in countering Chinese internet providers, but Musk’s role complicates the picture.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/05/07/elon-musk-starlink-trump-tariffs

The Street: Tariffs will devastate this entire industry

Posted on by
Reply

The toy market was worth $114.4 billion in 2024, according to a report from Research and Markets, and it’s forecasted to nearly double by 2034, reaching $203.1 billion.

However, the tariffs pose a roadblock to that plan. The reason is simple: nearly 80% of toys imported into the United States come from China. That leaves toymakers with some difficult options: absorb the costs of the imports, or pass them on to the consumer.

MGA Entertainment is the largest privately held toy manufacturer in the U.S. and is the brand behind many of the popular toys you see on store shelves, including Bratz, L.O.L. Surprise, and Little Tikes. But thanks to the tariffs, CEO Issac Larian is facing some hard decisions.

“Frankly, if these tariffs do not go away, we have no choice but to do layoffs,” he said in an interview with Retail Dive.

Large toy companies are being affected as well. Mattel announced in March that it would lay off about 35% of its manufacturing workforce. 

Tariffs will devastate this entire industry
Families with kids may face an unfortunate new reality.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/tariffs-will-devastate-this-entire-industry/ar-AA1EfMvd

MSNBC: Trump’s treasury secretary accidentally summed up the bitter truth about his tariffs

Posted on by
Reply

Amid his verbal squirming in Tuesday’s news conference, Bessent offered a perhaps unintended revelation. “President Trump is interested in the jobs of the future, not the jobs of the past,” the secretary said. “We don’t need to necessarily have a booming textile industry like where I grew up again, but we do want to have precision manufacturing and bring that back.”

But textiles and other low-cost goods that rely on cheap foreign labor are subject to Trump’s tariffs, which means higher prices for consumers even if Americans won’t ever make those products again. And while precision manufacturing is great, it tends to be much more automated, which requires a smaller number of highly skilled employees. That means Americans won’t be working in that kind of factory by the tens of millions. 

In other words, Bessent accidentally summed up the effects of Trump’s tariffs: we’ll pay higher prices, but get little in return. Even before we feel the worst of it, Americans already understand. They aren’t happy and, if a recession comes, Trump will really feel their wrath.

Trump’s treasury secretary accidentally summed up the bitter truth about his tariffs
Before his second term began, President Donald Trump said that tariffs were “not going to be a cost to you, it’s going to be a cost to another country.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-s-treasury-secretary-accidentally-summed-up-the-bitter-truth-about-his-tariffs/ar-AA1DUn0r

Daily Express: Temu halts Chinese shipments overnight as Trump kills tariff loophole in crackdown

Posted on by
Reply

Temu, the Chinese e-commerce giant, has ceased shipping products from China to the United States, according to a company spokesperson last Friday as a key tariff loophole was cancelled by the Trump administration.

Now, all U.S. orders will be dispatched from domestic warehouses within America, and products that were once shipped directly from China and dominated the site are now listed as out of stock.

This shift follows the Trump administration’s move to to end the de minimis exemption that permitted Chinese-made goods valued at no more than $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free. The exemption, which President Trump denounced as a “big scam” harmful to American small businesses, expired on this morning.

Most business will never notice, except those order stock & office supplies from China. As usual, King Donald is screwing the consumers, the “Little People”, every day American citizens.

Incidentally, this de minimis exception helped my family get their N-95 masks during the COVID epidemic. I found a supplier in Shanghai whose N-95 mask had the proper U.S. certification and who would ship them direct from Shanghai to my front porch for a reasonable price.

Temu halts Chinese shipments overnight as Trump kills tariff loophole in crackdown
Temu announced they’ll no longer ship products from China to the U.S. after Trump closed a tariff loophole, with ‘Out of Stock’ notices across the site

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/temu-halts-chinese-shipments-overnight-as-trump-kills-tariff-loophole-in-crackdown/ar-AA1E4Ksu

BIG: It’s war between Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump

Posted on by
Reply

Tensions over tariffs have gradually shattered Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s interest-based relationship with US President Donald Trump, especially since the start of his second term.

Trump accused Jeff Bezos of being “hostile and political” toward his administration after Amazon announced its intention to transparently post tariff hikes imposed by the Trump administration.

The platform plans to itemize the amounts, allowing consumers to see first-hand that the majority of the price increase on their Amazon bill is caused by tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

It’s war between Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump
Tensions over tariffs have gradually shattered Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s interest-based relationship with US President Donald Trump, especially since the start of his second term. White House accuses Amazon of “hostile and political act” after reported plan to display the additional cost of tariffs next to the price of items cnn.it/42AIysC — CNN (@cnn.com) 2025-04-29T13:55:44.619Z […]

https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/other/it-s-war-between-jeff-bezos-and-donald-trump/ar-AA1DUQQw

USA Today: ‘I run the country and the world,’ Donald Trump says in Atlantic interview

Posted on by
Reply

President Donald Trump declared that he runs the world as he reflected on what’s different during his second White House go around in an interview with The Atlantic magazine.

“The first time, I had two things to do ‒ run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” Trump said in the interview, published April 28. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.”

Sorry, Trumpsy dearest. God runs the world. You’re here only to scrub the toilets.

‘I run the country and the world,’ Donald Trump says in Atlantic interview
President Trump said he’s having more fun the second time around and again teased an unconstitutional third term in an interview with The Atlantic.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/i-run-the-country-and-the-world-donald-trump-says-in-atlantic-interview/ar-AA1DMR56