Trump again tweaks Amazon

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump took another shot at Amazon.com Thursday, tweeting that the online retailer pays “little or no taxes” and that it uses the U.S. Postal Service as “their Delivery Boy.”

Trump’s frustrations with Amazon are no surprise. He has accused the company of not paying enough taxes before, and in December tweeted that the U.S. Postal Service should charge Amazon more for delivering packages. His latest missive comes a day after Axios reported that Trump has wondered aloud if there was a way to “go after” Amazon with antitrust or competition law.

“I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election,” Trump tweeted Thursday. “Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!”

Amazon has grown rapidly since it launched in 1995 as a site that mostly sold books. It has changed the way people buy diapers, TVs and just about anything else. Toys R Us and other retailers that have filed for bankruptcy or gone out of business have said that Amazon’s low prices were hard to compete with. But industry analysts also say that some disappearing retailers were slow to adapt to the shift to online shopping.

Seattle-based Amazon has fought for years against collecting sales tax, but now collects it in states that have a sales tax. White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said Thursday that some Amazon users don’t pay sales taxes, such as third-party vendors who sell their goods through the site.

Amazon.com Inc. did not respond to a request for comment.

As for the Postal Service, it has lost money for years, but online shopping has led to growth in its package-delivery business. And Amazon signed a deal in 2014 with the post office to deliver packages on Sundays.

A spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service declined to comment.