Business
13:18, 17-Aug-2017
Trump attacks Amazon after Washington Post's editorial
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US President Donald Trump criticized online retail giant Amazon over taxes and jobs in a tweet on Wednesday.
The tweet was issued hours after The Washington Post, a newspaper owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, published an editorial criticizing Trump's comments on Charlottesville violence.
The Washington Post has been constantly targeted by Trump in his anger against "fake news". Using the hashtag #AmazonWashingtonPost, Trump tweeted in June that the paper was "the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should)."
The latest feud adds a wrinkle to Trump's fractured relations with the business community, as the president abruptly shut down his two key groups of outside business advisers on Wednesday after several business leaders resigned over his remarks on race.
Amazon, a company that employs about 180,000 in the US and also plans to hire 100,000 more full and part-time employees by mid-2018, has been criticized by traditional retailers as people shift to online shopping.
In July, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin hinted that the administration is examining Amazon's tax status.
From April this year, Amazon began collecting state sales tax for products it sells directly but Mnuchin said Amazon is not charging tax on the marketplace sales, which are made by other companies on Amazon's e-commerce website, CNBC reported.
"So this is an issue that we've been looking at very carefully within the administration, and we expect to come out with a position shortly," Mnuchin told Congress in a hearing.
Source(s): Xinhua News Agency