Retail CEOs: Low Prices Can’t Last in Face of Tariffs

While retailers in the United States have kept prices low despite tariffs, they say the situation can’t last.

That’s according to a report Tuesday (April 29) by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing unnamed sources familiar with last week’s meeting between the CEOs of Walmart, Target and Home Depot and President Donald Trump.

The executives warned Trump that higher prices would be tough to avoid, and some products could become scarce if retailers choose not to sell them due to tariff costs, the report said. The CEOs also assured the White House they would try to keep prices down for as long as possible.

Retailers have taken steps to deal with the tariffs, per the report. Walmart, for example, put some winter holiday orders from Chinese manufacturers on hold. Target paused shipments of products it buys directly from Chinese manufacturers. Amazon canceled some vendor orders from China once tariffs were announced.

Amazon is also planning to display how much of a product’s cost comes from the tariffs, a decision the White House labeled a “hostile” act, CNBC reported Tuesday.

In a cost-cutting measure, Walmart told staff at its office in Hoboken, New Jersey, that free plates, bowls and cups would no longer be available at the office, the WSJ report said.

Meanwhile, the latest earnings season showed consumers are pulling back on everything from fast food to snacks to travel.

While upcoming results from Amazon and Walmart will provide more information, “the last few weeks have offered mounting evidence that consumers are in ‘wait and see’ mode when it comes to the household budget,” PYMNTS wrote Monday (April 28).

“They’re waiting before making any real impulse buys or booking trips and weighing whether they really want to bring home another bag of chips,” the report said.

If consumers continue to pull back on spending due to tariff-related uncertainty, $92 billion could disappear from the U.S. economy, PYMNTS reported Sunday (April 27).

U.S. retail spending came to around $7.4 trillion last year, most of it from consumers. PYMNTS Intelligence found that 78% of these consumers said they would cut back by buying fewer or cheaper products.

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