Donald Trump’s second term as president could spell higher costs for Walmart shoppers.
The retail giant’s CFO told CNBC that if the tariffs Trump spoke about on the campaign trail are actually implemented, prices on some products may be impacted.
“We never want to raise prices,” executive John David Rainey confessed Tuesday. “But there probably will be cases where prices will go up for consumers.”
Lowe’s CFO Brandon Sink reportedly echoed similar sentiments in a recent earnings call where he said 40% of the home improvement store’s good are imported into the U.S. and might be subject to tariff taxes. Those costs would likely be passed on to consumers.
Other companies that have expressed a potential need to raise prices to offset tariffs include AutoZone, Stanley Black & Decker and Columbia Sportswear, according to Business Insider.
The incoming president has proposed adding up to 20% to the cost of U.S. imports to raise money for the federal government. Companies bringing in goods from China could pay as much as double what they’re currently spending on those items.
Fashion brand Steve Madden said right after Trump was elected that it had a plan in place to move goods out of China and into factories in Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico and Brazil so the impact of tariffs on imports wouldn’t be as severe, according to CNBC.
The U.S. currently places a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles.
Economists who favor tariffs also argue that making imports more expensive could incentivise U.S. companies to buy — and manufacture — more domestic products.
A spokeswoman for Trump’s transition team told ABC News that Trump’s tariff strategy is part of a plan to “work quickly to fix and restore an economy that puts American workers by re-shoring American jobs, lowering inflation, raising real wages, lowering taxes, cutting regulations, and unshackling American energy.”
Trump’s tariffs will cost the average U.S. household more than $2,500 annually, according to an estimate from one prominent Washington, D.C. think tank.
Some items that might be made more costly by tariffs aren’t made in the U.S. Products expected to be made more pricey include electronics life smartphones and tablets.
Sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists signed a letter in July warning Trump’s economic plan could “reignite” inflation, which they said is trending in the right direction. Those Nobel Laureates are “deeply concerned about “the risks of a second Trump administration for the U.S. economy.”
