Economic experts are warning that if president-elect Donald Trump follows through on his plan to impose massive tariffs on goods imported from other countries, American consumers will likely face higher prices — a warning that was recently echoed by a prominent executive from Walmart, the country’s largest retailer.
Walmart chief financial officer David Rainey expressed his views on the proposed tariffs in an interview with CNBC, framing increased costs as an action the company would be forced to take in order to make up the costs of tariffs.
“We never want to raise prices. Our model is everyday low prices. But there probably will be cases where prices will go up for consumers,” Rainey said.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that tariffs would be paid for by the countries they’d be imposed on, and that American consumers wouldn’t suffer any consequences from the policy — a claim that contradicts opinions from the vast majority of economists.
The president-elect is planning on imposing a baseline tariff on all foreign-made goods, somewhere between 10 to 20 percent. Trump has also said that he would impose a tougher tariff on China, anywhere between 60 to 100 percent.
Despite the near-universal sentiment from economists that these tariffs would hurt American consumers, Trump’s ardent supporters in Congress appear to be readying themselves to support his proposal.
“If Donald Trump says tariffs work, tariffs work. Because Donald Trump is really never wrong,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) told reporters.
Rep. Troy Nehls: “If Donald Trump says tariffs work, tariffs work. Because Donald Trump is really never wrong. Think about it. He is never wrong.” Blind loyalty doesn’t make for good governance.
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@accountablegop.bsky.social) November 18, 2024 at 2:50 PM
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Notably, tariffs also resulted in additional costs for consumers when Trump imposed them during his first term in office. When Trump imposed tariffs in 2018 and 2019 , the result was essentially $80 billion worth of new taxes on Americans, according to a report from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
The next round of tariffs that Trump plans to propose would be even bigger — and thus, more harmful to consumers’ pocketbooks, affecting costs for electronics, clothing, toys and other products that Americans buy from outside the U.S.
Other companies have echoed Walmart’s warnings about tariffs affecting consumer costs.
“If we get tariffs, we will pass those tariff costs back to the consumer,” AutoZone CEO Philip Daniele stated.
Stanley Black & Decker CEO Donald Allan Jr. has also indicated that costs would go up for his company’s products. “Obviously, coming out of the gate, there would be price increases associated with tariffs that we put into the market,” Allan said.
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