President Trump Seems To Have Amazon In His Sights

Lawmakers may be setting their sights on Facebook in the wake of its data scandal with Cambridge Analytica, but President Donald Trump has a favorite target for his ire: Amazon.com.

According to a report in Axios citing five sources, Trump isn’t paying attention to the Facebook scandal but is apparently “obsessed” with hating Amazon and is looking at ways to change the eCommerce giant’s tax treatment. According to the report, Trump is concerned that mom and pops are being put out of business because of Amazon. One source told Axios that the president wondered out loud if the government could go after Amazon from an antitrust or competition standpoint. The report noted that Trump’s wealthy friends have been complaining that Amazon has destroyed businesses, while his real estate friends blame Amazon for the demise of shopping malls and brick and mortar retailers. According to the report, the President agrees with those assumptions about Amazon.

What’s more, Axios reported Trump thinks Amazon is hurting the U.S. Postal Service — even though that’s not the case. “The whole post office thing, that’s very much a perception he has,” a source said in the report. “It’s been explained to him in multiple meetings that his perception is inaccurate and that the post office actually makes a ton of money from Amazon.”

The president also has an issue with the ownership of The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. The Washington Post has been behind some breaking news about the White House that doesn’t portray Trump in the best light.

The hatred of Amazon comes at a time when technology giant Facebook is reeling from a scandal in which Cambridge Analytica, the political consulting firm that worked on President Trump’s election campaign, accessed data on 50 million users without their consent. While lawmakers are calling for Facebook to testify and are mulling new regulation of Facebook and other tech companies, Trump isn’t interested. Axios reported he likes Facebook because it enables him to reach the people.