Amazon is causing "great damage to tax paying retailers," Trump said in a Twitter post last week, causing shares in the online retailer to fall as much as 1.2 percent.
“Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!” Trump said in the tweet.
Trump is losing the support of many company executives, some of whom resigned last week from a council of business leaders to protest the president’s response to the violent demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia. But he has often taken particular aim at Amazon and the Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, for its coverage.
While it’s unclear what prompted Trump’s tweet, which seems to be taking on two issues — taxes and jobs — The Washington Post ran a scathing editorial about Trump in the paper Wednesday, and there were also pro-tax reform advertisements that ran on early morning talk shows.
It’s often difficult to parse Trump’s tweets, but he seems to be focusing partly on how Amazon’s sales and market share growth is hurting the traditional retail industry. His remarks come amid one of the most tumultuous years in the industry’s history. Brick-and-mortar chains, especially apparel sellers, are suffering from sluggish mall traffic and an exodus of shoppers to e-commerce.
