President Donald Trump reflected on Friday His phone call Earlier in the week with the founder and executive president of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, saying to “Meet the press” of NBC News in an interview that he would use the same tactic with other CEOs if necessary.
The call occurred after Punchbowl News reported that Amazon was going to start listing the price fees On certain Amazon purchases following the Trump administration’s decision to impose 145% prices on China.
“He’s just a very nice guy,” said Trump about Bezos in an interview that broadcast on Sunday. “We have a relationship. I asked him questions about it (the Amazon tariff language envisaged, including in the announcements). He said:” Well, I don’t want to do it “, and he removed it immediately.”
Trump and Bezos seem to have developed a closer relationship in recent months than in Trump’s first administration.
In December, Amazon made a donation of $ 1 million At the Trump inauguration fund, and Bezos attended his swearing in. Bezos resigned as the CEO of the company in 2021, but it is still its executive president.
Indeed, in a press release shortly after the Punchbowl report, an Amazon spokesperson told NBC News: “The team that manages our Amazon Ultra transport store at low cost considered the idea of listing the import costs on certain products. This has never been approved and will not happen.”
When asked if he would use the same tactic with the CEOs of other retailers, Trump told the moderator Kristen Welker: “Of course. I will always call people if I do not agree with them.”
“If I think someone does something incorrect, harm or maybe hurting the country, I’m going to call,” he added. “Wouldn’t you like me to call? (Former President Joe) Biden wouldn’t call because he didn’t know what was going on, but I do it.”
In the interview, Trump defended his decision to impose major import rates from imports from China, saying that this decision is supposed to give companies incentives to build factories in the United States to avoid paying prices, and not simply to increase prices on consumers to compensate for the cost of prices.
“I do not consider it as a tax. I consider it an incentive for people to come to the United States and to build plants, factories, offices, a lot. I think it is an incentive,” he told Welker.
“What people do not understand is, and it is a lot, the country eats the price. The company eats the price. And that is not transmitted at all,” he added.
Several other large online retailers, such as TEMU, a low -cost retail site based in China, have already started to charge consumers’ price costs, adding a line element to purchases listed as “import costs. “”
Other popular American retailers, such as Béis, naked necessities and Nova fashion, have Consumers have urged to buy more In the short term, predict that the imposition of future prices could force them to increase prices.
Large companies, such as Pepsico and Procter & Gamble, have issued similar warnings, Share the shareholders During recent meetings, they already see the impacts of prices on income.
Trump has recognized that prices may have an impact on the availability of short -term consumer goods.
When asked if his remark on children with fewer toys at a meeting was a recognition that prices would result in prices, Trump told Welker: “I don’t think a nice little girl needs – it’s 11 years old – must have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls, because what we were doing with China was simply incredible.”
Trump made a similar remark at a meeting from the cabinet to the White House, saying to the members of his administration: “Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a few dollars more than they would normally do.”
But he rejected the assertion that he provided price increases or supply shortages due to prices.
“I just say that they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They may have three. They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five,” he said, adding: “We don’t have to waste money on a trade deficit with China for things we don’t need, for garbage we don’t need.”