President Donald Trump's tweets about Amazon aren't going to make regulatory action against the company more likely, according to antitrust experts. If anything, they'll be counterproductive.
"If you could bet on the agencies taking no action, I'd be standing there with a handful of tickets," said William Kovacic, professor of global competition law and policy at George Washington University and director of Competition Law Center.
"The last thing the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission want is to become puppets of elected officials. They'll run your life every minute."
Trump continued his Twitter attack on Amazon on Tuesday, saying the world's fourth-largest company is "costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy."
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He has called Amazon a "no-tax monopoly" and, according to a Vanity Fair article, is pondering ways to "f--- with" Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.
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Presidents and other elected officials have called out companies for hurting consumers for decades. But while political rhetoric can cause companies to proceed with caution on pricing and acquisitions, it won't cause a regulatory agency to move forward with a monopoly or monopsony case, said Keith Hylton, professor of law at Boston University.
"I still believe there's a fair amount of independence both within the DOJ and the FTC from the president," Hylton said. "The norms and procedures with the agencies don't change much across the administrations. There's not a lot of room for Trump to go after individual companies."