For starters, it’s unseemly for a president to be attacking an American company, especially when he appears to be seeking to damage the company and its stock price. Trump’s attacks on Amazon are also tied to The Washington Post, which Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos separately owns, and therefore seen as an attempt to influence the Post’s coverage. And many of Trump’s claims about Amazon are not accurate or are grossly exaggerated — for instance, that the e-commerce giant is cheating the United States Post Office.
President Trump kept up his war against Amazon on Tuesday, tweeting another string of criticisms at the technology titan he claims is ripping off the U.S. Postal Service.
“I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy. Amazon should pay these costs (plus) and not have them bourne [sic] by the American Taxpayer. Many billions of dollars. P.O. leaders don’t have a clue (or do they?)!” Trump tweeted Tuesday.
Trump has insisted for days that Amazon is costing the USPS millions of dollars in lost shipping fees. While USPS does give Amazon a shipping discount because of the volume of packages it ships and has a deal with the company to ship packages on Sundays, the postal service’s financial troubles stem from other issues. Plus, Amazon’s prominence could be helping the postal service, though the company pays comparatively little in taxes versus other tech firms.
However, on at least one account, Trump is correct. Throughout its history, the e-commerce giant has been a master of tax avoidance, leveraging laws that don’t properly account for Internet sales and playing states and municipalities against one another for tax breaks.
Until the stock’s recent dive, Amazon was the second-most valuable company in the country, worth nearly $800 billion and behind only Apple. However, the company paid no U.S. income taxes on a $5.6 billion in domestic profits last year thanks to a $789 million windfall from the new tax law, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
Trump insists that the Post acts a “lobbyist” for Amazon, a baseless claim disputed by everyone affiliated with both companies and one that would be a breach of journalistic ethics and the public trust.
Trump has reportedly been obsessed with damaging Amazon, and his constant attacks are weighing on the company’s stock. While share prices for Amazon jumped 1.4 percent today in a broader stock market rally, its stock has fallen 10 percent since the start of last week, when Trump began his assault on the company.
