A better idea would be to do what Amazon threatened to do:
list the tariff on the price tag, under the original price, so the consumer will see the total, and understand why the price increased.
Amazon floated the idea for about 12 hours yesterday. Until Bezos apparently panicked at the idea of pissing off Trump.
I don’t buy the idea that Amazon ever truly considered listing the tariff cost on the price tag. The tariff cost is based on the wholesale cost of the item (what the Chinese exporter is charging Amazon). If they would list the tariff charge per item, they would effectively be listing their wholesale cost for that item, as well. Not gonna happen.
Bezos didn’t panic and change his decision to appease Trump. I doubt there ever was a serious decision under consideration.
That’s a good point. So what do you think was the play here?
Someone floated the idea internally as a way to justify price hikes, and someone else leaked it out to either take credit (if he liked it) or make the first someone look bad (if not).
As I understood it, the only section of Amazon that was considering listing the tariffs as a line item was what is called the Amazon Haul store.
Amazon Haul appears to be set up as a competitor to Temu and Shein. I suspect that in the Amazon Haul store, Amazon is just providing 3rd party services to the Chinese merchants, who are selling their products directly to the customers. This business model was enabled by the old laws that allowed Chinese merchants to ship small orders directly to US customers without tariffs.
So, revealing the tariff amount wouldn’t expose Amazon’s margins and mark-ups because there are none……Amazon isn’t buying, marking up and reselling, the merchants are selling direct to the customers at prices they set, and Amazon makes their money by charging for online storefronts, order processing and possibly other services like shipping consolidation.
In this model, it makes perfect sense that Amazon would want the tariffs to appear as a line item.
Pretty sure this is it, because the one time I ordered form Amazon Haul, my package did come from China.
We have?
If you read the article carefully, they’re not really saying anything. This is PR.
In detail, they say they won’t accept “unauthorized” price increases and that supplier must give ninety days’ notice.
Well, yeah. Of course; that is just routine. If I run Albertson’s and have an agreed upon price for an item you sell me, you have to sell it to me for that price for the period of time the price is guaranteed. Your costs could go up for a thousand reasons, that’s just business, and Albertson’s or any other company like them is justified in saying “I said I’d pay $1.37 a unit and you couldn’t hike the price without 90 days notice.” You can hike the price upon mutual agreement or the end of the period we’ve agreed to, or not sell me the goods at all. It’s in their contracts.
Albertson’s is literally just restating a policy they and every other supermarket chain already had. They’re just doing it in a tough-guy voice to sound good to their customers.
Like the farmer in the OP? He had a contract too.
Suppliers can still sell to Albertsons for the agreed-upon price; but taxes cannot be avoided. Albertsons has to pay the Trump Tax sales tax.
My guess? The idea was discussed at the top, but never really considered Perhaps Bezos decided to leak it as an irritant to Trump, but I really have no idea.
After reading **Ann Hedonia’**s post, that fits, too. I had not heard of Amazon Haul, so it could be that simple. If your competitor starts using a specific advertising tactic, you would have to at least consider the same tactic, which appears to all that has happened here.
Maybe not. Arkansas asked for FEMA relief funds after the latest batch of tornados ripped up the state, and got told no.
https://arkansasadvocate.com/2025/04/25/trump-denies-disaster-aid-tells-states-to-do-more/
It all depends on where in the chain they are, and what their contracts actually say.
Albertsons is a retailer, I believe. If they’re purchasing from wholesale food distributors in the US at contracted prices, then they don’t pay the tariffs. Because they’re not importing anything. The distributors they buy from pay the tariffs, assuming they’re the ones doing the importing. And if the contracts restrict the distributors’ abilities to increase prices to pass on the tariff costs, then the distributors are kinda screwed, in the short term at least. Course, if Albertsons squeezes their suppliers hard enough, they’re potentially going to hurt themselves in the long run. It’s not like typical wholesale food distributors are small operations without the means to fight back against games like this.
The farmer in the OP was the importer, though. He had a contracted price with a Canadian supplier, which was honoured, and then an additional bill from the US government for the tariff.
Different situations.
They are; they are the second-largest operator of grocery stores in the U.S., behind Kroger (with which they recently tried, and failed, to merge). They operate stores under the Albertsons name, as well as a bunch of legacy brand names from local/regional chains that they have purchased, including Safeway, Acme Markets, Vons, Shaw’s, Jewel, etc.
At their size, for a lot of their inventory, particularly packaged goods (as opposed to fresh produce, meat, etc.), they are likely buying directly from the manufacturers (e.g., Tyson, Kellogg’s, Kraft Heinz, Pepsico, Procter & Gamble, etc.), rather than through wholesale distributors. But, your general point likely still holds.
No, Albertsons doesn’t. If THEIR supplier is importing the goods, the supplier pays it. They’re almost certainly getting their products from American importers.
If Albertsons has a contract to buy those goods at a pre-tariff price they absolutely can insist on that price for the period of time that contract extends. Now, if they’re too insistent on this, their suppliers might just refuse to sell goods. But that’s their call.
Generally speaking the supplier contracts do NOT specify a price for a period of time. They specify a discount off some “list price” that smaller retailers and distributors might pay. Often under a MFN (ironically from international trade “Most Favored Notion”) clause.
So Albertsons might pay 4% less than a 40 store regional chain. But when the list price goes up, costs go up for all buyers.
There are other back-end incentives, like advertising fees, short term volume incentives, new item “slotting” fees and numerous others. But a manufacturer (e.g. Campbells Soup) would target a “dead net cost” for Albertsons, Kroger, Hy Vee all the way down to King Kullen (25 stores) that takes into account all discounts and allowances. If Albertsons refused to pay the 5% tariff surcharge, they are going to lose promotional or other funding.
Campbells isn’t going to sell to Albertsons for 5% less than Kroger. Not gonna happen. The also aren’t going to eat the 5% tariff on all their sales. That would put them out of business.
The real issue is, is Albertsons buying directly from importers, or are they buying from domestic suppliers, who are then buying from importers for some of their materials?
If they’re buying directly from importers, then the tariffs should be billed directly to them by the government. Pay the taxes, or they hold your stuff in the ports.
But the second scenario is harder. If the material costs have gone up, then either the price goes up, the supplier loses money, or the sale falls through. They’ve said the price isn’t going up, so do they give up selling that product, or do they expect their suppliers to take a loss for the next three months? Taking such a loss just might kill off the smaller suppliers, so then they’re down to just giving up that product anyways.
Knew it without having to click on it.
I often listen to Kai Ryssdal on Marketplace on NPR when driving home form work. Sometimes (always?) he does an editorial bit at the end of the show that I usually miss. In one from several weeks ago (February?) he issued a stark warning about what Trump was planning (DOGE/tariffs etc.) an the impact on the U.S. economy. IIRC, he started the piece out by saying something along the lines of, “I don’t want to sound hyperbolic or alarmist but this is what is coming, if Trump does what he says he’s going to do” . He went on in some detail with a sensible explanation.
Fast forward to a couple of days ago and the topic was tariffs. A Trump administration economist was questioned by someone about the whole Amazon idea of listing relevant tariffs along with prices and the subsequent call to Bezos from Trump. Ryssdal played the response. It started off with the normal sucking up to Trump. Then the speaker said that whoever came up with the idea of listing the cost of tariffs had a fundamental misunderstanding about who pays them. To paraphrase - its not the importer or consumer, its the seller/manufacturer of the product that pays the tariff! He was insistent that consumers won’t be paying the cost of the tariff. He also mused about the future employment status of whoever suggested this idea. Ryssdal ended the piece with (again paraphrased) " I may not have a PhD in economics like (whoever this guy was) but I’m telling you - the consumer ends up paying the tariffs". How can an alleged PhD make a statement like this?
With all the claims of the “hundreds of billions” in tariffs that China is paying, has no one asked to see proof of said payments? Where are the checks made out to “America” and signed by “China”? Has any reporter asked Trump directly who he thinks who pays the tariffs and what his understanding is of how they are supposed to work? Or are they too afraid of being barred from the White House or getting death threats when Trumps expresses his displeasure? Really, WTF? Oh, and Bezos would be considered a “traitor” if he actually did something like this.
As I’m fond of saying, remember “The Big Lie”? That the 2020 election was stolen from Trump by the Democrats?
He hasn’t let go of that one yet, really, now has he?
Is the magnitude of the information silo in which his supporters exist:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
–Hugh Trevor-Roper, English historian, paraphrasing Joseph Goebbels, WWII German Propaganda Minister
Anything Trump and his minions say is the gospel. Anything that contradicts that gospel is Fake News (or Satan’s Headlines).
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Many of these people are not at all stupid. They’re evil.