Retail Amazon boss: tariffs are gradually causing US prices to rise
According to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, US President Donald Trump's tariff policy is gradually causing consumer prices in the United States to rise. Retailers are dealing with this in different ways.
21.01.2026, 01:21
SDA
The world's largest online retailer and the retailers active on the platform had built up considerable inventories last year before the tariffs came into force, Jassy told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos. However, these reserves ran out in the fall. As a result, the tariffs are now "creeping" into the prices of some goods, as he put it.
At the same time, individual traders were dealing with the consequences of the tariffs in different ways, Jassy qualified. Some were passing them on to consumers in the form of higher prices, while others were absorbing the additional costs themselves in order to boost demand for their products.
Amazon itself always tries to keep prices as low as possible. However, in the retail business with its traditionally low margins, the options are "not endless", said the Amazon boss. "If people's costs go up by ten percent, there are not many places where you can absorb that."
Researchers: Americans pay for tariffs
Trump's government had always rejected warnings from economic experts that US consumers would ultimately bear the costs of the tariffs. The president and his ministers repeatedly claim that there is no additional inflation as a result of the tariffs. Rather, the tariffs made the USA rich and encouraged investment in production in the country, according to the White House.
In contrast, researchers from the Kiel-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy came to the conclusion in a study published this week that the tariffs were not a burden on foreign exporters, but on the American economy itself. Only around 4 percent of the tariff burden is borne by foreign suppliers, while 96 percent is passed on to US buyers, according to the study, which was based on over 25 million delivery data records with a total value of almost four trillion US dollars.
