This is an adapted excerpt from the April 29 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
For all the talk about what the media got wrong about the last election, and how it failed to communicate the stakes for democracy, I actually think the American people were well-warned that Donald Trump would govern like an authoritarian.
Trump thinks that his own force of will is so powerful that he can overcome reality itself.
The biggest miss, though, was on the tariffs. They went underreported, and when they were reported, no one believed he would do it, even though Trump talked about it all the time. (Although I should note, you would not have been surprised about the tariffs if you were a regular viewer of “All In,” where we warned about them all the time, starting back in January of 2024.)
Trump inherited an economy that was the envy of the world, and he’s basically tried to destroy it ever since. All in pursuit of this one issue: tariffs — an issue he has been absolutely obsessed with for at least 40 years.
He thinks that his own force of will is so powerful that he can overcome reality itself. He insists that American consumers will not pay the tariffs; the exporting countries will. But that is not true. Everyone on Wall Street and in Washington has been running around screaming for a month that this is an import tax.
Trump thinks he can keep this going like Wile E. Coyote, when he runs off the cliff and doesn’t look down. But the data is coming in, and prices are going up.
Just consider the popular Chinese e-commerce retailer Temu. It sells a bunch of clothes and tchotchkes at very low prices, but with the caveat that you are importing them directly from China. Thanks to Trump’s tariffs, importing a bunch of cheap stuff directly from China just got a lot more expensive. So Temu added a line during checkout to show exactly how much Trump’s tariffs are costing you.
CNBC ran an experiment and found that a $30 order now comes with $45 in “import fees,” meaning what would normally cost you $30 just a few weeks ago would run you $75 today. See, China is not paying those tariffs. You are paying those tariffs.
On Tuesday, there was a report that Amazon might consider something similar for some products — a price line telling you exactly how much Trump’s tariffs are costing you — and the White House went absolutely ballistic. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt called it a “hostile and political act by Amazon.”
Around the time of Leavitt’s briefing, Trump called Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to complain about the reported plan, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News. And surprise, Amazon caved. The company now says that it was only considering adding the tariff line for its subservice “Amazon Haul,” which is a direct competitor to sites like Temu, where you import cheap goods directly from China. More importantly, Amazon says it is not going to add the tariff line anymore.
Trump was pleased. When asked about his call, the president told reporters, “Jeff Bezos was very nice. He’s terrific. He solved the problem very quickly, and he did the right thing. Good guy.”
Bezos understands the score. Trump wants direct control over the American economy. He does not want free markets, he wants a planned economy controlled by him. That means he is allowed to run the country like a corrupt mafia state where he shakes down big companies he views as adversaries and cuts sweetheart deals to his friends. It is still going to cost 145% more to import things from China, whether or not Amazon explicitly tells you that is what is happening. His own commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, effectively agreed that even talking about the tariffs is an attack on the White House. When asked if it was a “hostile act” for a company to say they’re raising prices because of tariffs, Lutnick said, “I think if you go out of your way to try to make it seem like your price has changed when it’s nonsense … a 10% tariff is not going to change virtually any price. The only price it would change would be a product that we don’t make here, like a mango.” Now, first of all, people will absolutely notice if their prices rise by 10%. Second, it is not just 10% from China. It is 145%. That aside, Bezos gets how this administration is operating, so he’s not going to tell you about the Trump tax directly. But, it is still going to cost 145% more to import things from China, whether or not Amazon explicitly tells you that is what is happening. It is the same thing Trump tried to do during Covid, when he suggested keeping testing numbers artificially low so that there would be fewer reported cases. But that did not actually mean fewer cases. People still noticed when they got sick. Trump can say whatever he wants, but it will still be the case that the shipping containers will be empty. It will be the case that your prices are higher. No amount of lying and bullying can change certain facts about the world. You cannot overcome some aspects of reality. Everyone is going to start feeling the impacts of these tariffs.
Chris Hayes hosts “All In with Chris Hayes” at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday through Friday on MS NOW. He is the editor-at-large at The Nation. A former fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Hayes was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest book is “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource” (Penguin Press).
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
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