President Trump’s criticism of Amazon looms over its Whole Foods deal

Amazon’s brazen bid to buy Whole Foods for $13.7 billion will bring the e-commerce giant toe-to-toe with President Donald Trump, who once slammed the company as a threat to competition — and threatened it would have such “problems” under his watch. Looming over the customary antitrust review are President Trump’s own comments.

Sitting down with conservative commentator Sean Hannity in May 2016, Trump explicitly challenged Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, in large part because of his ownership of the Washington Post. "He thinks I'll go after him for antitrust," Trump said at the time. "Because he's got a huge antitrust problem because he's controlling so much, Amazon is controlling so much of what they are doing.” President Trump continued: "He's using the Washington Post, which is peanuts, he's using that for political purposes to save Amazon in terms of taxes and in terms of antitrust." In December 2015, Trump essentially called Bezos's ownership of the Post a tax-dodging scheme for his "no-profit company, Amazon." (The Post is owned by Bezos personally and is not part of Amazon.) Months later, at a campaign rally in Texas, the president issued his most direct threat to the e-commerce titan. "Believe me, if I become president, oh do they have problems, they are going to have such problems,” President Trump said.