As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take workplace, Seattle’s largest employer has lots on the road.
Regardless that Amazon, like different retailers, is more likely to face increased prices if Trump follows via on marketing campaign guarantees to boost tariffs, the tech and e-commerce big remains to be set to profit from an administration billing itself as pro-business and antiregulation.
Trump is basically anticipated to go away tech firms alone, moderately than placing up guardrails round their developments, together with in synthetic intelligence. The brand new administration might additionally scrap a sprawling antitrust lawsuit accusing Amazon of performing as a monopoly within the e-commerce business. And, it can probably arrange a Nationwide Labor Relations Board that’s much less sympathetic to unions than the present one appointed by President Joe Biden, which might have an effect on an ongoing wave of unionization efforts at Amazon’s warehouses.
Amazon’s expertise throughout Trump’s first time period was largely marked by a feud between the president and Amazon’s founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos. It’s unclear if Trump will take an identical combative stance this time round. However, if not, Amazon, much like different tech firms, could also be set to reap the advantages.
“All roads are leading to Amazon. The mighty gets mightier in this administration,” mentioned Sucharita Kodali, an analyst with analysis firm Forrester who follows Amazon. “It seems like this is the time for the Amazon people to do a dance. I don’t see anything about the new administration that is going to hurt them.”
Amazon declined to remark for this story.
Shortly after the election outcomes, CEO Andy Jassy congratulated Trump on X, writing “We look forward to working with you and your administration on issues important to our customers, employees, communities and country.”
Much less regulation
Biden’s appointed Federal Commerce Fee Chair Lina Khan made a reputation for herself as an Amazon critic, beginning in 2017 when she printed an instructional paper titled “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.”
As head of the regulatory company, Khan ushered in an period of blocking mergers, submitting antitrust lawsuits and selling worker-friendly guidelines. Trump’s FTC is more likely to take a unique method that pushes for much less regulation and extra business-friendly insurance policies.
“Lina Khan was really about tackling Big Tech,” mentioned Kodali, from Forrester. Trump has tech mogul Elon Musk in his ear, so “he’s likely to leave Big Tech alone.”
Amazon has denied the allegations, arguing that the FTC has focused practices which can be widespread within the retail business and assist spur innovation. The corporate misplaced its bid to drop the swimsuit; a federal district decide dominated in October that the FTC had adequately alleged Amazon’s enterprise practices could possibly be anticompetitive.
The case is ready to go to trial in October 2026, however the FTC might vote to finish the case earlier than then, mentioned John Kirkwood, a legislation professor at Seattle College.
“There is a serious possibility that the FTC could cut back or even withdraw its complaint against Amazon,” he mentioned. “It could be withdrawn almost instantaneously.”
That occurred earlier than, Kirkwood mentioned. Within the Eighties, President Ronald Reagan’s Republican-led FTC dropped a case in opposition to IBM that had been within the works for years and accused the corporate of performing as a monopoly.
Huge Tech firms like Amazon and Microsoft may additionally profit from a regulatory setting that’s extra pleasant to acquisitions and mergers, after Khan’s FTC largely blocked that sort of consolidation.
The brand new administration might additionally change the way forward for noncompete agreements, which forestall staff from going to work for a competitor for a time frame. Proponents of the agreements, together with Huge Tech firms, say they assist defend mental property, whereas critics say they forestall staff from searching for increased wages.
The FTC voted to ban noncompete agreements this yr, however that rule is now caught in authorized limbo after a federal decide in Texas blocked the regulation and dominated the FTC had “exceeded” its authority. Now, the way forward for that rule is as much as the courts, Kirkwood mentioned.
AI and AWS
Like many tech firms, Amazon is betting synthetic intelligence has the ability to be “transformative” and is pouring sources into furthering its development, from investing in AI startups and constructing its personal AI chips to introducing new AI options to assist Amazon consumers and workplace staff.
On the federal stage, relating to AI, the “best thing that can happen, is nothing happens,” mentioned Kodali.
The Trump administration might usher in an period of unrestricted innovation, moderately than imposing guardrails on the businesses designing new AI instruments.
Trump issued an government order with requirements for growing AI on the finish of his first time period in 2020. Biden issued an government order final yr that set requirements for AI security and safety and suggested firms to guard shopper privateness and ensure the expertise is equitable.
It’s unclear what Trump will do relating to AI, however after operating a marketing campaign that promised to chop again regulation, many count on he’ll cut back Biden’s government order.
Trump “wants the U.S. to be a leader in AI,” mentioned Jake Dollarhide, an analyst and co-founder of wealth administration firm Longbow Asset Administration. “And he needs to ensure all steps are taken to offer Huge Tech firms, together with Amazon, the chance to satisfy their targets … for world AI dominance.
“They just need the government to get out of the way.”
Amazon’s normal counsel and senior vice chairman for world public coverage David Zapolsky wrote in a July op-ed that, after working with the Biden administration on voluntary commitments to advertise the secure growth of AI, “it’s now very clear we can have rules that protect against risks, while also ensuring we don’t hinder innovation.”
In Trump’s first administration, Amazon accused the president of reducing its cloud computing division, Amazon Net Companies, out of profitable authorities offers as a result of Trump didn’t like Bezos.
Bezos has since stepped down as CEO, although he nonetheless serves as government chairman, and seems to have modified his stance towards the president-elect, which might assist safe contracts for AWS and Bezos’ rocket firm Blue Origin, which is predicated in Kent.
In a congratulatory submit on X after the election, Bezos wrote that “No nation has bigger opportunities.”
Contending with tariffs
As soon as he takes workplace, Trump needs to boost taxes on worldwide items coming to the U.S. to spur American manufacturing. He’s thought-about a 20% tariff on all worldwide items and a 60% tariff on merchandise from China.
That’s more likely to result in increased costs for shoppers, as U.S.-based firms that depend on worldwide items must pay the additional value, based on the Nationwide Retail Federation. It estimated in a November research that Trump’s tariffs might value American shoppers as a lot as $78 billion. A $40 toaster would enhance to $48, a $50 pair of athletic footwear would bounce to $59.
For Amazon and its third-party retailers, who account for roughly 60% of Amazon’s gross sales, the impression of tariffs isn’t so lower and dry.
“There’s so many ways it could go. … There’s winners and losers everywhere,” mentioned Lesley Hensell, the co-founder of Riverbend Consulting, which helps impartial sellers navigate Amazon’s guidelines.
The winners? Amazon sellers who manufacture merchandise within the U.S., in addition to sellers who’re struggling to compete with China-based producers that may promote items at ultralow costs on different marketplaces, like Temu and Shein. Amazon just lately launched its personal low-cost storefront, Amazon Haul, to compete with these e-commerce platforms.
Tariffs would “really hurt” Temu, Shein and Amazon Haul, Hensell mentioned. “Frankly, U.S. sellers will be thrilled if all three of those get demolished, no matter how it happens.”
The losers? Amazon sellers who depend on China-based producers that can both have to boost costs to cowl the price of further tariffs or scramble to search out new manufacturing.
It’s not a assure these sellers would flip towards U.S. producers with none incentives in place to take action as a result of it may be costlier than manufacturing overseas, mentioned Carolyn Lowe, CEO and founding father of ROI Swift, one other consulting agency that helps Amazon’s third-party retailers.
“I think the biggest thing is it’s going to be disruptive as folks all of a sudden have to find new manufacturers,” mentioned Lowe. “The easiest thing to do is just raise your price.”
Amazon itself will even face tariffs, particularly on its private-label model Amazon Fundamentals, which presents low-cost necessities which can be largely made abroad, Lowe mentioned. However, the corporate could not must go the price of these tariffs on to shoppers in the identical means impartial retailers would as a result of it has different income streams, like promoting.
There’s additionally some skepticism about what Trump might really put in place, regardless of his marketing campaign guarantees.
“He talked a big game with tariffs in his first administration, and he only ultimately put them on a handful of goods,” mentioned Kodali, from Forrester. Biden then saved a few of these tariffs in place.
Dollarhide, from Longbow Asset Administration, noticed a silver lining: The tariffs might enhance enterprise for U.S.-based firms that make their very own AI chips, like Amazon.
“Tariffs, indirectly, could be a boon to some of Big Tech,” he mentioned.
The NLRB and unionization
Below the Biden administration, Amazon has confronted an NLRB that’s sympathetic to staff and significant of Amazon, its involvement in union elections and its CEO.
That would change underneath Trump, who, in his first time period, constructed an NLRB that was pleasant to employers, over unions. Throughout his marketing campaign, Trump even instructed that putting staff ought to be fired, regardless of that being in opposition to labor legislation.
“This result is a blow for every worker who depends on our elected leaders to fight for our jobs, our unions and our contracts,” Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, a coalition of 60 labor unions that represents greater than 12 million staff, mentioned in a press release after the election.
“No one — not Donald Trump or (Vice President-elect) JD Vance, nor any one CEO — can stop solidarity,” she continued. “Organized labor is the path forward.”
Amazon has seen a rising wave of unionization efforts at its warehouses as staff have fought for protections in opposition to damage, COVID-19 precautions and extra lax guidelines round paid day off and breaks.
Below Biden’s worker-friendly NLRB, Amazon staff have efficiently fought what they are saying was Amazon’s interference with union elections. This month, the company ordered Amazon to carry a 3rd union election at its warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., after a decide decided that the corporate violated labor legislation.
The NLRB additionally closed the door on Amazon’s try to overturn the outcomes of the profitable union drive in Staten Island, N.Y., by denying the corporate’s objections to the result. A federal decide additionally dominated earlier this yr that Amazon CEO Jassy violated labor legislation in 2022 when he mentioned staff can be higher off and not using a union.
This month, the NLRB made a precedent-setting ruling stemming from a case involving the union marketing campaign at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse. The company decided that necessary “captive audience” conferences, through which firms argue in opposition to unionization, are unlawful.
In response to these authorized battles, Amazon has challenged the constitutionality of the NLRB, following a playbook much like that of Musk’s SpaceX and Dealer Joe’s.
Trump could have the possibility to decide on a brand new normal counsel to steer one aspect of the bifurcated company, in addition to fill a few of the board positions that make up the opposite aspect of the NLRB. The board presently has 4 members, three of that are Democrats.
President Biden broke with custom when he took workplace in 2021 by firing Trump-appointed Normal Counsel Peter Robb in January, although his time period was set to final via that November.
Warehouse security
The Occupational Security and Well being Administration opened greater than a dozen inspections at Amazon warehouses across the nation in the course of the Biden administration. In a number of citations, it accused the corporate of exposing staff to ergonomic hazards that put them at a excessive danger of damage.
If Trump follows the identical path he did throughout his first administration, that development is more likely to change.
Within the first three years of Trump’s first presidency, the variety of enforcement actions and inspectors at OSHA steadily declined, based on a 2019 research from the employee advocacy group Nationwide Employment Legislation Challenge.
In that interval, the research discovered, OSHA severely lower down on inspections associated to musculoskeletal issues, or MSDs, a kind of damage attributable to repetitive motions.
Amazon has come underneath scrutiny on the state and federal stage for placing staff prone to MSDs, although the corporate has seen damage charges decline within the final two years.
Washington state has just lately enacted new legal guidelines meant to decrease damage charges, by requiring employers to inform staff productiveness expectations and increasing the state’s authority to set new guidelines for industries that constantly see a excessive charge of damage.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, and Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minnesota, who’re each nonetheless in workplace, launched the Warehouse Employee Safety Act to place further safeguards in place on the federal stage, however the invoice didn’t transfer additional within the Senate final yr. Enterprise teams pushed again on the laws, arguing it could make it more durable for companies to function and deny employers due course of rights.
The incoming administration may additionally change the destiny of a newly launched OSHA rule that might require employers to place new safeguards in place to guard staff from heat-related hazards.