President Donald Trump said he wouldn’t hesitate to call any CEO who makes a business decision he doesn’t like, much like he did with Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos.
“He’s just a very nice guy. We have a relationship. I asked him about it,” Trump said of the speculation that Amazon would break out tariff charges. “He said, ‘Well, I don’t want to do that,’ and he took it off immediately.”
In the interview Sunday, Trump said that he would call other CEOs if he didn’t agree with their decisions.
“I’ll always call people if I disagree with them,” he said. “If I think that somebody is doing something that’s incorrect, wrong, or maybe hurtful to the country, I’ll call. Wouldn’t you want me to call?”
Apart from the China tariffs, the administration has also imposed a 10% baseline tariff on all countries. Despite evidence that U.S. consumers will pay for tariffs with price increases, Trump denied Sunday that tariffs amount to a tax.
“What people don’t understand is, and this is a lot, the country eats the tariff. The company eats the tariff. And it’s not passed along at all,” he said.
