Along with big price increases for gas, diesel and heating oil, Trump’s War Tax continues to grow
Brad
Reed for Common Dreams
Amazon announced on Thursday that, beginning April 17, it
would add a “3.5% fuel and logistics-related surcharge” to vendors that use its
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service in the US and Canada.
The company said that it needed to add the surcharge due to
“elevated costs in fulfillment and logistics” that “have increased the cost of
operating across the industry.”
“We have absorbed these increased costs so far,” Amazon
said. “However, similar to other major carriers, when costs remain elevated, we
implement temporary surcharges on our fulfillment fees to recover a portion of
the actual cost increases we are experiencing.”
Amazon spokesperson Ashley Vanicek told CNBC that the company’s surcharge will be “meaningfully lower” than rival carriers, and insisted that “we remain committed to our selling partners’ success and to maintaining broad selection and low prices for customers.”
Tahra Hoops, director of economic analysis at Chamber of
Progress, said that Amazon’s surcharge is “yet another example
of more increased costs to come,” as “the ongoing supply shock” caused by the
Iran war “has lasted longer than expected.”
Amazon isn’t alone in adding surcharges due to the war’s
impact on fuel costs.
According to a Tuesday report in The New York Times, fresh food distributors across the US
have been adding surcharges to deliveries to make up for the increased fuel
costs caused by the Iran war, with the result being that “grocery stores,
restaurants, hospitals, and even schools are most likely seeing costs for their
food shipping climb.”
John Ross, the chief executive of the Independent Grocers
Alliance, told the Times that the increased shipping costs from the surge in
diesel fuel costs have come at a particularly inopportune time since many
Americans were already stretched thin financially before Trump attacked Iran.
“For people who spend every nickel they have on daily
expenses, if grocery prices go up $5, that $5 has to come from something else,”
Ross said. “But it’s hard for the grocers to eat it also. For every $1 that
consumers spend at the register, the grocery store is keeping about two
pennies. There’s very little room there.”
The price of fuel isn’t the only factor seen driving food
prices higher, as CNBC reported that experts expect to see a spike in food
prices later this year thanks to the Iran war’s impact on fertilizer prices.
University of Minnesota economist Kjetil Storesletten told
CNBC that “the price of food is going to move quite a lot” in the coming
months, predicting that “all of the increased price in fertilizer is going to
be passed through to food.”
Storesletten said that food prices won’t jump immediately,
but warned that coming grocery sticker shock will grow more severe if Iran
keeps its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz for the foreseeable future.
“Imagine [the strait] remains closed until the summer,” the
economist said. “We will see substantial increases in food prices.”