e-commerce

The president also argued the exemption has allowed Chinese e-commerce giants to edge U.S. retailers out of the market.

“Transformational, on the order of magnitude of the advent of e-commerce itself.”

Amazon, another tech giant whose results were being closely watched for signs of tariff damage, likewise said sales were holding up, rising 8% year-on-year in its North America e-commerce business in the most recent quarter.

On Tuesday he phoned CEO Jeff Bezos, another of his billionaire donors, to get the e-commerce giant to drop a plan to show tariff costs on customers’ bills.

The White House’s remarks came after Punchbowl News reported that the Seattle-based company was planning to show the cost of Trump’s tariffs on its e-commerce site.