Amazon CEO Says Tariffs Bleeding Into Product Prices

Amazon’s CEO says White House tariffs have begun showing up in the price of some goods.

The tech giant and many of its third-party sellers bought products ahead of time to fend off tariff-related price hikes, though most of that inventory has since run out, Andy Jassy told CNBC in an interview at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday (Jan. 20).

“So you start to see some of the tariffs creep into some of the prices, some of the items, and you see some sellers are deciding that they’re passing on those higher costs to consumers in the form of higher prices, some are deciding that they’ll absorb it to drive demand and some are doing something in between,” Jassy said. “I think you’re starting to see more of that impact.”

CNBC notes that these comments are a notable shift from last year, when Jassy said the company hadn’t seen “prices appreciably go up” a few months after President Donald Trump announced wide-ranging tariffs.

Last April, the chief executive also predicted that some merchants could be forced to pass the added cost of the tariffs on to consumers as some sellers “don’t have 50% extra margin that you can play with.”

Jassy told CNBC Amazon is now trying to “keep prices as low as possible” but said there are some cases where it won’t be able to avoid price increases. He added that consumers remain “pretty resilient” and are still spending despite the tariffs, though some are trading down or holding back from larger discretionary purchases.

Jassy’s comments come amid a new round of tariff threats, and at a time when, as PYMNTS wrote Tuesday, millions of American households are already dealing with financial margins, limited savings and greater sensitivity to price changes.

“For families living paycheck to paycheck (about two-thirds of consumers), even modest cost increases can ripple quickly through household budgets,” that report said.

“That backdrop helps explain why tariffs were already on consumers’ radar as the new year began, and ahead of the latest uncertainty that arrived this week. Rather than viewing tariffs as abstract geopolitical tools, many households appear to be weighing their potential effects in personal terms.”

New PYMNTS Intelligence data show this concern is not confined to any one segment of the paycheck-to-paycheck population. Tariff-related anxiety is widely felt, reflecting how exposed household finances remain after inflation, uneven wage growth and ongoing cost pressures.