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Amazon’s fourth-quarter earnings call heavily focused on the tech titan’s big $100 billion bet on AI in 2025, and introduced a soft first-quarter outlook that disappointed Wall Street—all while a record $20 billion in net profit seemingly went under the radar.
But one elephant in the room notably did not get addressed by the e-commerce giant.
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Unlike many retail industry concerns shared about the current global trade climate, tariffs were not mentioned on the call by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky or any of the analysts in attendance.
Neither was there any mention of the Section 321 de minimis provision, which was shut down as part of President Donald Trump’s executive order to impose the additional 10 percent tariffs on all China-made goods.
Sourcing Journal reached out to Amazon for comment.
Tariffs would appear to be more of a concern for the company’s third-party sellers than Amazon itself, since 62 percent of items sold on its marketplace are from third parties.
“There certainly are e-commerce sellers based in the U.S. that have arrangements with suppliers in China, and are fulfilling directly from China,” said Judah Levine, head of research at freight booking platform Freightos. “There are some small businesses that use de minimis to bring goods that they sell, so it will definitely impact some e-commerce sellers.”
Analysts from Morgan Stanley wrote in a Monday note that 25 percent of the merchandise sold through Amazon’s first-party retail business, though which the company sells products purchased from manufacturers, comes from China.
The e-commerce giant’s low-cost Shein and Temu competitor, Amazon Haul, which also ships products from Chinese merchants directly to U.S. customers, would also feel the heat from the tacked-on tariffs and halting of de minimis.
“That piece of it will be impacted,” said Levine. But the future of the channel is now unknown. At the very minimum, scrapping the duty-free trade provision would require those packages to go through U.S. customs—and require an extra processing fee for formal entry.
Given that Amazon Haul quietly launched in November and represents a minuscule amount of merchandise, Amazon’s overall business isn’t likely to see any material hit. If anything, the wider blow to both Shein and Temu could likely benefit the U.S. Big Tech firm and its sellers, which still “for the most part, bring in bulk inventory by ocean freight,” Levine told Sourcing Journal.