by WorldTribune Staff, April 1, 2018
U.S. President Donald Trump is taking on Amazon, a mega corporation that is widely revered and feared but is rarely attacked.
Trump pointed out that the retail giant pays no federal income taxes and said it scams the Post Office out of billions of dollars. He also said The Washington Post should register as a lobbyist for Amazon.
Jeff Bezos owns both Amazon and the Post.
Trump tweeted on March 31: “While we are on the subject, it is reported that the U.S. Post Office will lose $1.50 on average for each package it delivers for Amazon. That amounts to Billions of Dollars. The Failing N.Y. Times reports that “the size of the company’s lobbying staff has ballooned,” and that… does not include the Fake Washington Post, which is used as a “lobbyist” and should so REGISTER. If the P.O. “increased its parcel rates, Amazon’s shipping costs would rise by $2.6 Billion.” This Post Office scam must stop. Amazon must pay real costs (and taxes) now!”
In July 2017, Trump had tweeted: “Is Fake News Washington Post being used as a lobbyist weapon against Congress to keep Politicians from looking into Amazon no-tax monopoly?”
Breitbart’s John Nolte noted in a March 31 report that the president was “referencing reports that, although it is the third-biggest corporation in the world and Bezos is the richest person in history (net worth $105 billion), Amazon enjoys a $1.46 subsidy for every package it ships through the post office. And, if you can believe this, after earning $5.6 billion in 2017, Amazon paid no federal taxes. The federal corporate tax rate in 2017 was 21 percent. Amazon paid zippo.”
The Washington Post, in response to Trump’s March 31 tweet, “acted just like a lobbying firm with a sugarcoated and misleading defense of Amazon, beginning with the claim that Amazon pays a sales tax in 45 states,” Nolte noted. “Like a lobbying firm, though, the Post is not telling the full truth. Amazon does not pay a sales tax. Amazon’s customers pay that sales tax. The company merely collects that money for the government.”
Nolte continued: “Also, like a lobbying firm would, the Post failed to inform its readers that the president is correct that Amazon does not pay a single penny in federal taxes. Finally, just like a lobbying firm would, the Post wrote, ‘Trump’s use of social media to call out individual people and companies has been unprecedented for a president.’ ”
“With that sentence, what the left-wing Post is dishonestly doing is winnowing this down to social media as a means to pretend Trump’s ‘call[ing] out individual people and companies [is] unprecedented’ for a president,” Nolte wrote. “It is not.”
Nolte continued: “The truth is that Obama frequently attacked Fox News and, without knowing all the facts, singled out a police officer as ‘stupid.’ He also took a swipe at the Washington Redskins and regularly demonized individual Republicans who dared stand in his way.”
Subscribe to Geostrategy-Direct __________ Support Free Press Foundation
Who is speaking up about social media monopolies? President Donald Trump added by World Tribune on
View all posts by World Tribune →