Critics had been mounting for three months, they ended up dissuading Amazon: the online sales giant announced Thursday that it was giving up setting up a new headquarters in New York, with 25,000 jobs at stake, following the hostility of several elected local Democrats.
“After much thought and deliberation, we have decided not to move forward with our plans to build a new headquarters” in New York, Amazon announced. on his corporate blog.
“A number of local political figures have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the kind of relationships we need to make the project happen,” Jeff’s company argued. Bezos, world’s first fortune.
The abandonment of this project supposed to boost the dynamism of the American financial capital was welcomed by the elected Democrats who had opposed the arrival of Amazon. Like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has been sitting in the US Congress since January and whose constituency borders the district of Queens, where Amazon was to set up shop.
“Anything is possible: today a group of determined New Yorkers and their neighbors defeated Amazon’s greed, its exploitation of workers and the power of the richest man in the world,” the star tweeted. the left wing of the Democratic Party, which regularly vilifies Wall Street and billionaires.
Bill de Blasio, the far-left mayor of New York, who had worked alongside Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to lure the project, appeared to blame the failure on the company.
“We offered Amazon the opportunity to be good neighbors and do business in the greatest city in the world,” he said in a statement. “Amazon rejected this possibility. We have the best talent in the world. […] If Amazon doesn’t recognize our value, their competitors will see it. »
Governor Cuomo had not yet reacted by early Thursday afternoon, but he too could show his anger.
After putting some twenty American cities in competition with each other for months, the growing company, whose main office is in Seattle, announced in November that it was going to build two new offices, one in New York , in the borough of Queens, and the other in the suburbs of the capital Washington.
But since then, many New York Democratic personalities had criticized the project: they denounced pell-mell the some 3 billion tax advantages promised to the company, the foreseeable increase in rents and the foreseeable saturation of the subway in the district concerned. , passing by the absence of unions at Amazon and the absence of public consultation during the negotiations with the mayor and the governor of New York on the project.
The group clarified that “at this stage” it did not intend to seek another site to replace the New York establishment. But he intends to continue his project near Washington, with 25,000 jobs at stake, and that of Nashville, Tennessee, with 5,000 jobs planned.
A project that always divides
If the elected officials hostile to the project have declared victory, the announcement of the renunciation of Amazon risks being badly experienced by a part of New Yorkers, who according to the polls were mainly in favor.
A poll published Tuesday by Siena College University showed that in New York itself, 58% of voters were for the project and 35% against. The approval rating even climbed to 70% among blacks and 80% among Hispanics.
The first reactions of residents on Thursday confirmed the divisions.
If a young woman from Long Island City said she was “relieved” because she feared an increase in her rent, a construction contractor denounced “the short-term vision” of local elected officials hostile to the project.
On February 8, Mr Cuomo accused Amazon critics of playing “dangerously” with fire after the Washington Post quoted unnamed company officials indicating that the project could be scrapped.
It was aimed in particular at the New York State senators who had appointed an elected official who was very critical of Amazon, Michael Gianaris, within a mini-committee with the power to block the project.
Mr. Gianaris, who had mainly denounced the 3 billion in tax benefits promised to Amazon, seemed without any regret on Thursday.
“We really need to revisit this tendency that we have of subsidizing big business,” he said. “Amazon is the biggest company in the country, it’s run by the richest man in the world, it didn’t need the 3 billion. »
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