Amazon CEO Andy Jassy gave a warning to wallet-wary Americans in the wake of President Trump’s tariff agenda — saying the everything site many have come to rely on may have to up prices on common items.
Jassy issued an equivocating warning to Amazon customers that the world’s most popular online retailer is facing challenges from the Trump administration’s tariff push, stating in an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box” on Thursday that the levies could create “macro issues” that hit the average Joe square in the budget.
“I’m guessing that sellers will pass that cost on,” Jassy said of the cost of tariffs. “And I understand why, I mean, depending on which country you’re in, you don’t have 50% extra margin that you can play with.”
“It’s so early right now, but we haven’t seen any change in consumer behavior in a meaningful way yet,” Jassy said.
The CEO stated that there are potential “discontinuity” issues for the site as they face possible increased demand for certain types of cheap products made overseas — but he carefully avoided mentioning China, even when prompted by the interviewer.
“Obviously, the China piece of it is still on a huge portion of your sellers and other manufacturers that are selling through Amazon manufacture in China,” Sorkin offered as a leading question.
“Well, it’s hard to know what’s really going to happen. You know, there’s a lot of flux right now and, you know, we’re going to spend time on where we spend all our cycles trying to figure out how we have the right customer experience,” Jassy said in response.
Sorkin persisted and referenced reports that Amazon “cut back” from buying certain products from the Communist nation.
“Well, what I would tell you is whenever you have a threat of any kind of discontinuity, as a team, you have to think about what you can do to help customers. And so we’re doing everything we can to try to keep prices the way they’ve been for customers as low as possible,” Jassy cagily replied.
The Amazon CEO did say that the company will try and prevent elevated prices through “strategic forward inventory buys” on popular items and the renegotiation of deals with suppliers.
Jassy also commented on the behavior of other companies’ advertising plans in the face of tariffs, such as Warner Brothers, Delta, and Walmart and stressed that “it’s hard to know what’s really going to happen.”
“I completely understand why companies are nervous right now. It’s so early. You don’t know, but the worry, of course, when you have things like tariffs is that it’ll create macro issues where it depresses demand or drives inflation, but it’s we just haven’t seen it yet.”
Jassy said Amazon communicates with the Trump administration “all the time” on a range of issues — including tariffs.
“We share with them different, you know, things that we think matter to consumers, things that we would think matter to enterprise. We have some conversations about tariffs as well. And we share what some of the concerns are and they’re aware of them,” he told Sorkin.
Jassy also refused to comment on reports the company was bidding on Chinese-owned social media app TikTok, saying cautiously, “I don’t know. I mean, it’s I think, the conversations that the administration is having, probably was having before and more intensely is having now with each country are complicated.”
“If this doesn’t work out, being a politician might,” Sorkin joked, regarding the CEO’s unwillingness to give a straight answer.
Amazon stock dropped just over 6% on Thursday, but is up just over 8% on the week and reached a record high valuation of $242.06 per share on Feb. 4 of this year.
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