Tariff Man, Meet Your Match: Transparency Man
Amazon backtracks, but Americans are starting to ask exactly how much extra they're paying for Trump's ill-fated adventures in Tariff-Land
A good idea can often be measured by the ferocity with which the Trump team attacks it.
By that measure, Jeff Bezos and Amazon had a big, beautiful idea, and the Trump team responded with a collective coronary — right on cue — lambasting Amazon’s “hostile and political” act.
In a scoop first reported by Punchbowl News, Amazon was considering listing the actual cost Trump’s tariffs would pass along to the consumer.
Transparency. Imagine that.
That spatula that you need to scrape out every last molecule of peanut butter from the jar? Here’s how much more it will cost you now compared to a few weeks ago, thanks to Trump’s tariffs.
Oh, and here’s the Trump-tariff impact to Besties Barbie, which you were going to buy for your niece’s birthday. (Don’t even ASK about the Barbie playset featuring the Chelsea pilot doll, her plane — the propeller spins! — and five storytelling accessories.)
An Amazon spokesperson later told The New York Times that the idea was limited to a division of the company — Amazon Haul — and, in any case, the idea is being scrapped.
Other outlets, including CNN, have reported that Tariff Man was so desperate that he personally called Jeff Bezos, who shamefully backed down.
But Transparency Man got America excited, and he’s here to stay.
New polling suggests voters are losing patience with Trump when it comes to their main reason for voting him back into office: the economy.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board declared that “Trump 2.0 is in trouble,” noting that “the tariff shock he’s unleashed could sink his second term.”
For more on the Amazon idea that almost happened, I reached out to Judge Glock, the director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
“Yes, Amazon would be right to tell its customers how much tax they are paying for their purchases,” Glock told me. “Sales taxes are included on receipts for a reason, and tariffs, even though the actual charge comes earlier, typically function just like sales taxes to raise prices.”
And which group gets hurt the worst by tariffs? The people who make the least amount of money.
Which is why we need billionaires to stand up to Trump. They seem to be doing the opposite. Elon Musk nearly tanked his signature company to be in the president’s good graces. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.
Today, Bezos had a unique opportunity to give the American consumer the ability to quantify — to the penny — one of Trump’s worst policy ideas. Disappointingly, Bezos decided to play nice instead.
But as nearly 60% of Americans now say that Trump’s policies have worsened economic conditions, Tariff Man may find that transparency feels an awful lot like kryptonite.