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Bezos bowed to Trump, but you should demand receipts

Chris Brennan   Paste BN

Let’s talk about how a craven billionaire can have, and inadvertently share, a good idea – even if he is too cowardly to follow through with it.

This idea, you should know, embraces truth and transparency. That’s often “bringing the receipts.”

Amazon was apparently crafting a plan to add to customer receipts a line itemizing any increased cost from Trump’s ill-advised trade tariffs, according to an April 29 report from the website PunchBowl News that caused quite a stir.

Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, whined that day from the White House podium that Amazon’s potential receipt line was a “hostile and political act.”

Stop here and parse that – being transparent about pricing on receipts is “hostile and political” to Trump. That only makes sense in a world where everyone is supposed to spend all day declaring what a genius Trump is, as if we all live in one of his Cabinet meetings.

That’s the position from the White House, occupied by a president who keeps telling us tariffs are going to make America rich while shrugging off the enormous chorus of economists who keep telling him that’s not how tariffs work.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, responded in an entirely predictable way in this new golden age of billionaire bootlickers seeking Trump’s blessings. He begged for forgiveness in a phone call with Trump, while Amazon officials swiftly backpedaled from the receipt idea. 

Trump, after his call with Bezos, declared him “very nice” and said “he solved the problem very quickly.”

Again, hear what Trump is saying about this: Letting Amazon customers know how tariffs impact the cost of their orders is a problem that needs fixing.

My latest: Liberal Party of Canada just did what American Democrats couldn't: Beat Trump

The fury here, from Trump and Leavitt, betrays a startling White House fear about letting consumers know how the president’s tariffs increase the costs for things they buy.

Here’s a handy rule to follow: The more Trump hates an idea, the more it makes sense. 

And if he calls something a problem, he’s seeing it as a problem for himself, not for you. Trump doesn’t think about you or your problems. He has never been capable of empathy. He’s not picking it up now at age 78.

Trump’s fear of transparency may be about more than Amazon. Bloomberg News reported on April 11 that other companies are looking to add tariff itemization lines to customer receipts.

And that follows reports that some restaurants are adding surcharges to receipts when customers order eggs. Remember Trump campaigning last year, complaining about how expensive eggs were? He promised to fix that problem. Instead, we got surcharges.

Trump clearly has the leverage to make Bezos do whatever he wants. But American consumers have leverage too, earned from what they spend. They should demand a tariff itemization line on their receipts so they can see exactly how much Trump’s foolish tariffs are costing them.

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