President Donald Trump slammed e-commerce giant Amazon on Thursday, claiming that the company pays few-to-no taxes and that its use of the U.S. Postal Service is “causing tremendous loss to the U.S.”
“I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election,” the president wrote Thursday on Twitter. “Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!”
Amazon shares dropped Wednesday after an unidentified source told Axios that Trump was looking for ways "to go after Amazon with antitrust or competition law." Trump has also criticized Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.
"He's obsessed with Amazon," an unidentified source told Axios. "Obsessed."
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that despite the president’s comments, no specific policies were being pushed in regards to Amazon.
“The president has said many times before he's always looking to create a level playing field for all businesses, and this is no different,” she said.
Thursday’s comments were not Trump’s first criticisms of Amazon.
The president claimed in December that the post office was losing “many billions of dollars a year” and “charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer.” He wrote that the post office, “Should be charging MUCH MORE!”
Last summer, he questioned whether “Fake News Washington Post” was “being used as a lobbyist weapon against Congress to keep Politicians from looking into Amazon no-tax monopoly.”
The speculative comment earned a "Pants on Fire" rating from Politifact.com, the fact-checking group's category for statements it deems to be most erroneous. The group noted that while Amazon is a large company, it's not a monopoly.
"While Amazon takes advantage of tax breaks and loopholes, it pays federal corporate tax, and charges sales taxes in 46 U.S. jurisdictions," according to Politifact. "It also supports federal legislation that would require other online retailers to pay state tax on internet sales."
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