Walmart hits back at Trump after he tells them to ‘eat the tariffs’

POTUS didn’t mince words, either. In a post on Saturday (May 17), he slammed Walmart for blaming his administration’s trade policies. 'Eat the tariffs,' he wrote, challenging the retailer to absorb the added costs. 'I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!' he added. It’s not the first time Trump has clashed with major American companies over trade and pricing, but Walmart’s size and influence make this exchange particularly noteworthy (Picture: AP)

Walmart's the largest single private employer in the United States and a key player in the retail market. It responded to Trump's telling off with a statement to USA Today yesterday (May 20). 'We have always worked to keep our prices as low as possible and we won’t stop,' said spokesperson Joe Pennington. 'We’ll keep prices as low as we can for as long as we can given the reality of small retail margins' (Picture: Getty Images)

Walmart has suggested that tariff pressures could very well soon lead to higher prices for its customers. In its May 15 earnings call, the company said that items like electronics, toys and even food would likely see cost increases, as new tariffs take effect and make things more expensive for them to operate as a business. Walmart President Doug McMillon specifically pointed to products imported from countries such as Costa Rica, Peru and Colombia. Naming items like bananas, avocados, coffee and roses as items that are under particular pressure (Picture: Getty Images)

John David Rainey, Walmart’s Chief Financial Officer, repeated those concerns during an recent interview with CNBC. 'The level of tariffs that have been proposed is pretty challenging for all retailers, for suppliers and certainly our concern is that consumers are going to feel some of that,' he said. Rainey then warned that price increases could begin taking effect and hitting shelves by as soon as late May. And continue well into June and beyond (Picture: Getty Images)

Walmart’s hesitation to issue Q2 profit guidance appears to reflect the wider financial uncertainty that's seemingly eating away at a lot of US retailers at the moment. And not just Walmart. The retail giant joins a growing number of companies that are warning of rising costs due to President Trump’s aggressive tariff push. Since early April, the president has imposed 10% blanket tariffs on imports and even higher rates on 60 individual countries (Picture: Getty Images)

Though President Trump maintains that it's foreign governments that are bearing the majority of the burden of his tariffs, plenty of economists disagree. Finance experts are claiming that American businesses that import goods are the ones paying the duties, with the added costs typically being passed on to consumers to protect company profit margins. Robert Lawrence is an international trade expert and Professor of International Trade and Investment at Harvard. He said: 'The evidence suggests that, by and large, tariffs are likely to be passed through to American consumers who purchase the products on which the tariffs have been levied' (Picture: Getty Images)

One of the real problem areas and reasons for concern is, it seems, food pricing. McMillon said during the earnings call that the company is trying to protect shoppers from increases in the cost of essential items, but added that tariffs on agricultural products from Latin America are complicating those efforts. Imported basics like fresh produce are now much more expensive to bring into the US, adding strain to an industry already dealing with inflation (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, the United States and China - the world’s two largest economies - agreed on May 12 to a 90 day pause to their ongoing trade war. Which saw temporarily lowering tariffs that had reached as high as 145% on imported goods. The pause is intended to give both sides time to hammer out a broader deal, one which President Trump will hope is beneficial to the US economy. But with no long-term agreements yet in place, many US companies remain somewhat on edge about what’s next for them and their profit and loss sheets (Picture: Getty Images)