AG
Let's put aside the philosophical issues with the government telling companies what prices to charge, and let's put aside the politics, and just talk about the math here. I want someone who defends this to explain the math that would allow anyone to eat it. The premises: Walmart is the biggest retailer in the U.S. They import around 40-50 billion from China each year. That represents ~60% of their imports (used to be closer to 80%). So let's say another 25 billion comes from other countries. So to calculate tariff impact: 30% (new reduced rate) X 40 billion= 12 billion (this does not include additional product-specific tariffs) 10% x 25 billion- 2.5 billion (does not count higher rate for non-USMCA and assumes no reciprocal tariffs- but also I am not considering quick resourcing options, so let's say that gap offsets) So as a best-case/conservative scenario, even with deals that keep current pauses in place, Walmart imports have a 14.5 billion annual impact. Where is that money supposed to come from? Walmart's net profit last year was $15.5 billion. So I guess option 1 is they become essentially a non-profit company, which I doubt shareholders will sign up for. Over time, they can produce more locally, but that will also mean greater non-tariff costs due to higher labor etc. Their next option is to cut costs to offset, which mainly means firing people and closing stores. I am sure they will do some of that, but is that really what we want? The only lever left is to raise prices. It's just math. Now, it's one thing if you want to argue it's worth it for consumers to pay higher prices for us to decouple from China or to force them to manufacture domestically. That's a legitimate argument. But there is no logical defense of promoting these policies while also demanding that companies not raise prices.
AG
Demanding that companies “eat” it after you implement a policy that clearly raises costs because they made a profit before is absolute nonsense. It’s not different than when the left tried to blame greedy corporations for inflation. The price increases are on Trump. He can either justify them as a necessary sacrifice to Americans or reverse the policies causing them.
