“Walmart should stop trying to blame the duties for raising prices by this network. Walmart earned billions of dollars last year, much more than expected,” wrote the president in his social network Truth Social. He added that Walmart and China should consume the costs of customs so as not to charge consumers.
“I will watch you, just like your consumers!” He warned.
Walmart reacts to Trump's customs. “Too high”
On Thursday, the financial director of Walmart announced that the company would be forced to raise the prices of its goods because of the customs introduced by President Trump. He stated that despite the reduction of Chinese duties, they are still “too high”.
The company considered one of the barometers of the American economy has been doing well until the first quarter has recorded a better result than expected. However, she warned that she could not predict what conditions she would deal with in the second quarter, so she did not publish the forecast for this period.
According to media reports, the management of Walmart together with the heads of competitive networks, such as Target and Home Depot, appealed to the White House in April for a reduction in customs duties, warning that otherwise this could mean empty shelves in stores.
Despite these warnings, the current data indicate that so far companies have not largely transferred customs costs to consumers, reducing their margins. Inflation data from the last two months were better than expected. This was also indicated by the PPI production price indicator published on Thursday, i.e. the prices of goods, which from March to April fell by 0.5 percent. Despite the growth of 0.4 percent expected by specialists
According to Bloomberg, these data indicate deteriorating consumer forecasts and moods, and companies do not raise prices because they are afraid of a decline in demand.
