Amazon emails sellers to gauge how Trump’s tariffs are impacting their businesses
Packages ride on a conveyor belt during Cyber Monday, one of the company’s busiest days at an Amazon fulfillment center on December 2, 2024 in Orlando, Florida.
Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo | Getty Images
Amazon is reaching out to third-party merchants, who account for the majority of products the company sells, to gauge how President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs are affecting their businesses.
Members of Amazon’s seller relations team began contacting some U.S. merchants last week, according to an email viewed by CNBC. The email asks how the “current U.S. tariff situation” has impacted sellers’ sourcing and pricing strategies, logistics operations and plans to ship goods into Amazon warehouses.
“I wanted to open a discussion about the current U.S. tariff situation and how it’s affecting our businesses on Amazon, particularly in terms of logistics,” the email says. “As of April 2025, we’re still dealing with the repercussions of various tariff policies, and I believe it’s crucial for us that you share current experiences and strategies.”
Representatives from Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the email, which was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.
Companies of all sizes are digesting the impact of Trump’s new tariffs. Earlier this month, the president signed an executive order imposing a far-reaching plan, but within days he reversed course and dropped country-specific tariffs down to a universal 10% rate for all trade partners except China, which faces tariffs of 125%. Stock and bond markets have fluctuated wildly in the past two weeks.
The levies on goods from China could be particularly burdensome for the millions of businesses that rely on Amazon’s third-party marketplace and source many of their products from the world’s second-largest economy. Third-party sellers now account for about 60% of all products sold on Amazon’s website.
Some Amazon sellers told CNBC they plan to hold steady on prices for as long as they can to remain competitive, but that the added cost of the tariffs could ultimately put them out of business if they remain in place.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said last week that some sellers may end up passing the cost of tariffs onto consumers in the form of higher prices.
“I understand why, I mean, depending on which country you’re in, you don’t have 50% extra margin that you can play with,” Jassy said Thursday in an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin.
The tariffs have affected other parts of Amazon’s retail business. Last week, the company began to cancel some direct import orders for products sourced by vendors in China, consultants told CNBC. Some vendors of home goods and kitchen accessory items had products ready for pickup by Amazon at shipping ports, only to learn that their orders were canceled.
Amazon shares are down 18% so far this year, while the Nasdaq has fallen 13%.
WATCH: Trump tariffs mean higher prices, big losses for some Amazon sellers
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is initiating a secondary share sale that would give the company a valuation of up to $800 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
SpaceX is also telling some investors it will consider going public possibly around the end of next year, the report said.
At the elevated price, Musk’s aerospace and defense contractor would be valued above ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which wrapped up a share sale at a $500 billion valuation in October.
SpaceX has been investing heavily in reusable rockets, launch facilities and satellites, while competing for government contracts with newer space players, including Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin. SpaceX is far ahead, and operates the world’s largest network of satellites in low earth orbit through Starlink, which powers satellite internet services under the same brand name.
A SpaceX IPO would include its Starlink business, which the company previously considered spinning out.
Musk recently discussed whether SpaceX would go public during Tesla‘s annual shareholders meeting last month. Musk, who is the CEO of both companies, said he doesn’t love running publicly traded businesses, in part because they draw “spurious lawsuits,” and can “make it very difficult to operate effectively.”
However, Musk said during the meeting that he wanted to “try to figure out some way for Tesla shareholders to participate in SpaceX,” adding, “maybe at some point, SpaceX should become a public company despite all the downsides.”
WATCH: What retail investors should know about OpenAI and SpaceX
The logo for Google LLC is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 17, 2021.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
A U.S. judge on Friday finalized his decision for the consequences Google will face for its search monopoly ruling, adding new details to the decided remedies.
Last year, Google was found to hold an illegal monopoly in its core market of internet search, and in September, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled against the most severe consequences that were proposed by the Department of Justice.
That included the proposal of a forced sale of Google’s Chrome browser, which provides data that helps the company’s advertising business deliver targeted ads. Alphabet shares popped 8% in extended trading as investors celebrated what they viewed as minimal consequences from a historic defeat last year in the landmark antitrust case.
Investors largely shrugged off the ruling as non-impactful to Google. However some told CNBC it’s still a bite that could “sting.”
Mehta on Friday issued additional details for his ruling in new filings.
“The age-old saying ‘the devil is in the details’ may not have been devised with the drafting of an antitrust remedies judgment in mind, but it sure does fit,” Mehta wrote in one of the Friday filings.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has previously said it will appeal the remedies.
In August 2024, Mehta ruled that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act and held a monopoly in search and related advertising. The antitrust trial started in September 2023.
In his September decision, Mehta said the company would be able to make payments to preload products, but it could not have exclusive contracts that condition payments or licensing. Google was also ordered to loosen its hold on search data. Mehta in September also ruled that Google would have to make available certain search index data and user interaction data, though “not ads data.”
The DOJ had asked Google to stop the practice of “compelled syndication,” which refers to the practice of making certain deals with companies to ensure its search engine remains the default choice in browsers and smartphones.
The judge’s September ruling didn’t end the practice entirely — Mehta ruled out that Google couldn’t enter into exclusive deals, which was a win for the company. Google pays Apple billions of dollars per year to be the default search engine on iPhones. It’s lucrative for Apple and a valuable way for Google to get more search volume and users.
Mehta’s new details
In the Friday filings, Mehta wrote that Google cannot enter into any deal like the one it’s had with Apple “unless the agreement terminates no more than one year after the date it is entered.”
This includes deals involving generative artificial intelligence products, including any “application, software, service, feature, tool, functionality, or product” that involve or use genAI or large-language models, Mehta wrote.
GenAI “plays a significant role in these remedies,” Mehta wrote.
The judge also reiterated the web index data it will require Google to share with certain competitors.
Google has to share some of the raw search interaction data it uses to train its ranking and AI systems, but it does not have to share the actual algorithms — just the data that feeds them.” In September, Mehta said those data sets represent a “small fraction” of Google’s overall traffic, but argued the company’s models are trained on data that contributed to Google’s edge over competitors.
The company must make this data available to qualified competitors at least twice, one of the Friday filing states. Google must share that data in a “syndication license” model whose term will be five years from the date the license is signed, the filing states.
Mehta on Friday also included requirements on the makeup of a technical committee that will determine the firms Google must share its data with.
Committee “members shall be experts in some combination of software engineering, information retrieval, artificial intelligence, economics, behavioral science, and data privacy and data security,” the filing states.
The judge went on to say that no committee member can have a conflict of interest, such as having worked for Google or any of its competitors in the six months prior to or one year after serving in the role.
Google is also required to appoint an internal compliance officer that will be responsible “for administering Google’s antitrust compliance program and helping to ensure compliance with this Final Judgment,” per one of the filings. The company must also appoint a senior business executive “whom Google shall make available to update the Court on Google’s compliance at regular status conferences or as otherwise ordered.”
This is breaking news. Check back for updates.
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