Walmart Needs to Remember Who Has the Real Power
President Trump can threaten retailers over price increases, but it’s customers who have the real ability to punish them.
Remember who’s really calling the shots.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North AmericaWalmart Inc. last week warned that tariffs will force it to raise some prices. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump hit back, telling the world’s largest retailer to “eat the tariffs.”
But while the president might have the bark, it is Walmart’s customers who have the bite — literally and metaphorically — when it comes to eating tariffs. Americans have the power to abandon retailers, food manufacturers and even high-end boutiques that engage in “greedflation,” just as they did in the wake of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That would do more to force companies to absorb the levies than any Trump outburst.