Neil Bradley, the executive vice president and chief policy officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, says it is “inappropriate” for government officials to use their offices to criticize American companies.
“It’s inappropriate for government officials to use their position to attack an American company,” Bradley told The New York Times in an article published Tuesday.
Bradley’s comments came after President Trump launched a series of tweets over several days in which he accused tech giant Amazon of scamming the U.S. Postal Service and failing to collect taxes on some sales.
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Bradley did not mention Trump by name, but told the Times that such attacks on U.S. companies by politicians undermine “economic growth and job creation.”
Trump’s broadside against Amazon appears to have had a real impact.
Amazon’s stock has plummeted by 7 percent and the company has lost $50 billion in market value since Axios reported last week that the president had privately expressed a desire to “go after” the online retail giant.
Trump has criticized Amazon in the past, even blasting the company on the campaign trail for what he called its “monopolistic tendencies.”
But he has stepped up those attacks in recent days, and has suggested that his administration could take action against the tech giant.