Tech giant Amazon.com has thrown a broadside at the Trump administration’s economic strategy, warning that the company’s ongoing performance will likely be marred by tariffs, recessionary fears and economic turmoil.

The warning, during a presentation of its first quarter results, comes two days after founder Jeff Bezos was forced to hose down speculation that the company would detail the tariff component of sales on its budget platform, Amazon Haul.

“This is a hostile and political act by Amazon,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had said when news of the plan initially hatched.

Two days on, and the world’s largest retailer which ship a huge volume of Chinese-made goods said it had made a decent first quarter profit. Its first quarter operating income of US$18.4bn and first quarter sales of US$155.7bn up 9% were above estimates.

However, Amazon also reported slow growth. And it warned that both the June quarter’s projected operating profit and sales would be below analysts’ expectations.

That’s unwelcomed news for the market and Amazon investors and Amazon shares dropped 3% as a result. The tech giant is among the so-called “magnificent seven” tech stocks that previously had aided the bullish conditions for trading in US markets.

Amazon cited tariff and trade policies, recessionary fears, and currency fluctuations among its concerns. All are factors being sheeted home to the Trump administration’s economic policies.

One major concern is that Chinese manufacturers and retailers will be reluctant to sell goods on Amazon’s platforms due to the tariffs they face importing into the US.

There’s also a likely hit to Amazon’s advertising revenue, along with emerging evidence of the slowdown. Bloomberg quoted an analyst on these concerns.

“Amazon advertising remains vulnerable to cuts in spending from the many small and mid-sized sellers who will be most squeezed by tariffs on goods from China, and revenue growth from the third-party marketplace has slowed significantly from the levels of just a few quarters ago,” Emerketer analyst Sky Canaves told Bloomberg.

Amazon Web Services posted first quarter sales of US$29.3bn, representing 17 percent growth.

CEO Andy Jassy said nobody knew exactly where tariffs will settle or when.

He said Amazon was buying extra retail goods in advance of tariffs and would help sellers on Amazon’s marketplace do the same. The company was working to keep prices down.