President Trump spoke with his former press secretary, Sean Spicer on Thursday in a televised interview. And spoke about Amazon. About how Amazon is costing jobs, and getting big tax breaks, something Trump doesn’t like as President.
Though, when he was a business man, those big tax breaks were okay.
Specifically, Trump is talking about how Amazon has an unfair advantage over small businesses with physical locations. Take JC Penny for example, who announced it was closing 154 stores on Friday. JC Penny needs to pay rent, they need to pay to get merchandise to each store, pay workers in that store. Amazon, not so much. They only really need to pay to get merchandise to each warehouse fulfillment center. And they pay fewer workers, as they don’t have any physical stores.
Trump is right, in saying Amazon is destroying malls
We don’t often say this, but President Trump is correct. Amazon is destroying malls, and hollowing out towns across America.
Just take a stroll to your local mall, and you’ll see the Amazon effect. Five years ago, almost every store in the mall was in business. Now, you’re seeing malls with most of the stores gone, empty locations within the mall. And even some malls that are completely gone. This is due to Amazon.
Amazon is able to charge consumers less, and have the item they want shipped to their door within two days, sometimes sooner. So why would someone buy a product from a store at the mall when Amazon is cheaper? That’s why malls are suffering.
When Trump is speaking about the tax advantage that Amazon has, he may even be talking about his own Tax plan that he passed in 2017. Which cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. But for Amazon, it goes deeper than that. You paid more in taxes last year than Amazon did. We all did. Amazon paid $0 in taxes last year, and that’s a big issue. Considering Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the US with over a $1 trillion market cap.
Trump has been fighting with Amazon & Jeff Bezos since he took office
Jeff Bezos, the mastermind behind Amazon, also owns The Washington Post and Trump is not a fan of that paper as it sometimes doesn’t print what he wants them to. But that’s a story for another day.
Trump has been going after Amazon and Bezos for a while. Saying that it is costing the American people jobs and money. Which is completely true. However, during the pandemic, Amazon was hiring hundreds of thousands of workers, while over 40 million people were put out of work. So it’s not as straightfoward as you might think.
Trump wants his Justice Department to open up an antitrust investigation into Amazon. And he’s not alone there. Plenty of Senators agree. This is all thanks to Amazon pushing into other areas with their Whole Foods purchase, Ring purchase and making its own hardware.