President Donald Trump's economic adviser Kevin Hassett staunchly defended Trump's threats against Amazon on CNN on Tuesday, asserting he was right to force the company to back down from its reported plans to disclose tariff costs in purchases by consumers.
"I want to talk to you about Jeff Bezos," said anchor Kasie Hunt. "Of course, the president there discussing his phone call with Jeff Bezos. Pretty remarkable that a U.S. company that wants to be transparent with consumers about why they're paying the prices that they are, would then be said to be political. Is this political interference in the free market?"
"No, no, no, no," Hassett insisted. "First of all, I've got to say that I'm really glad to have a president that, if he notices something that needs to be fixed for American workers in the U.S. economy, then he can pick up the phone. They pick it up right away, and then he gets to the bottom of it."
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"The bottom line is that if we charge a tariff on a foreign country, then if they have inelastic supply to us, then the supplier in that country is going to bear the tariff, not the U.S. consumer," said Hassett. "And the idea that Amazon is going to say that the tariff is passing through to the consumer means that they don't understand economics. And so you covered it as a debacle. I did think it was a debacle for whoever's doing economics at Amazon, because they were assuming something that's contrary to basic economics about who bears the tariff."
"It was correct for Jeff Bezos to apologize for it and to correct the record that Amazon, whoever did it, made a big mistake," he added. "I wonder if they'll have a job tomorrow."
Economists nearly universally agree that companies paying tariffs to import goods pass most of that cost on to consumers through higher prices.
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