As Americans’ wallets start to feel the weight of tariffs, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the bill is soon coming due.
“You start to see some of the tariffs creep into some of the prices,” Jassy said in an interview with CNBC at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “Some sellers are deciding that they’re passing on those higher costs to consumers in the form of higher prices; some are deciding that they’ll absorb it to drive demand; and some are doing something in between.”
Jassy’s comments were a reversal from July, when he said the tariffs’ effect on retail prices and consumption was “misreported” and it was too soon to tell how tariffs would affect prices. These statements were made before President Donald Trump implemented “reciprocal tariffs” on dozens of countries in August.
In May, Jassy encouraged sellers to stock up on inventory in anticipation of the tariffs and said Amazon would do the same to keep prices down. Most of that supply ran out by the fall, he said, and now, consumers are seeing the price hikes.
Tariffs have raised $200 billion in revenue for the U.S. Treasury, but a recent study found that American consumers are absorbing 96% of tariff costs.