White House Lays Out The Case Against Amazon

White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah laid out President Donald Trump’s grievances with the Amazon corporation in a Thursday interview with “Fox and Friends.”

“Right now there is no internet sales tax. And as a result companies like Amazon can buy and sell good without having to pay basic retail taxes that your stores and your convenience stores and all the folks around, when you walk out of the studio over there and grab something, you have to pay. And that puts brick-and-mortar retail stores at a disadvantage,” Shah said.

He added, “You have a huge company that has done amazing things in Amazon spring up in very short amount of time and really tax policy and other policy has to catch up to that.”

Shah’s comments follow a report from Axios’ Jonathan Swan that Trump has developed a deep animus for Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos. Axios’ report caused Amazon’s stock to tumble Wednesday and even prompted a tweet from the president.

I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. 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!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2018