Big-box retailers Walmart (WMT) , Home Depot (HD) , and Target (TGT) are responding to one of President Donald Trump’s recent, drastic policy changes, which poses a major threat to their sales.
Over the past few months, Trump has enforced tariffs on foreign countries in an effort to promote U.S. manufacturing. Tariffs are taxes companies pay to import goods from overseas, and the additional cost is often passed down to consumers through price increases.
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“The higher the tariff, the more likely it is that the company will come into the United States and build a factory,” said Trump in an interview with Bloomberg News in October.
Related: Walmart doubles down on harsh tactic to shrink threat of tariffs
On April 2, Trump raised eyebrows across the nation when he announced a 10% “baseline” tariff on all countries importing goods to the U.S., with roughly 60 countries seeing higher tariff rates.
However, on April 9, he flipped the switch and enforced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs on all countries (except China), dropping them to a universal rate of 10%. He also unexpectedly increased tariffs on China to 145%.
Trump’s tariffs are already causing increased consumer anxiety, which could impact retailers.
According to a recent survey from market research company Numerator, 83% of Americans are changing their shopping habits to prepare for the higher prices Trump’s tariffs could bring. Some of these changes include scavenging for sales and coupons, delaying purchases, buying less imported goods, and more.
Walmart, Home Depot, Target make a bold move
It appears that Walmart, Target, and Home Depot recently caught a whiff of this change in consumer sentiment. The retailers’ executives decided to meet with Trump on April 21 to discuss his tariff policy, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
A customer walks through an aisle at a Walmart store.
Image source: Bloomberg/Getty Images
The report said that Lowe’s executives were present at the meeting; however, a Lowe’s spokesperson told TheStreet that they were not.
Spokespeople for Walmart and Target told TheStreet that the meeting with Trump was “productive.”
“We had a productive meeting with President Trump and our retail peers to discuss the path forward on trade, and we remain committed to delivering value for American consumers,” said a Target spokesperson in an emailed statement.
A Home Depot spokesperson said that the company’s CEO, Ted Decker, was in attendance at the meeting and highlighted that the conversation with Trump was “informative and constructive.”
All three retailers recently warned about impact of tariffs
The move from Walmart, Target, and Home Depot comes after all three retailers recently sounded the alarm on the negative impact of tariffs.
Walmart warned in November that tariffs could cause it to raise prices in its stores, a move that threatens to drive away customers who are already battling inflation and a higher cost of living.
Related: Target makes controversial move to dodge high tariff costs
“We never want to raise prices,” said Walmart Chief Financial Officer John Rainey in an interview with CNBC in November. “Our model is everyday low prices. But there probably will be cases where prices will go up for consumers.”
In its latest earnings report, Target revealed that it expects its net sales this year to increase by only 1%, reflecting flat comparable sales growth.
During an earnings call in March, Target Chief Financial Officer Jim Lee said that the company’s sales predictions for 2025 reflect “a wide range of potential scenarios and uncertainty” in the market, including the threat of tariffs.
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“We’re going to be focusing on controlling what we can control,” said Lee during the call. “What we don’t know is potential consumer demand that’s across the board, across – based on how tariffs ripple across the economy, for instance. But we have that wide range for a reason.”
Home Depot’s CEO also warned during an earnings call in November that tariffs will have an “industrywide impact.”
“Whatever happens in tariffs will be an industrywide impact, it won’t discriminate against different retailers and distributors who are importing goods,” said Decker. “The type of product as an industry is generally sourced from the same countries. There has been some diversification of those sources, but clearly a bit of concentration in Southeast Asia and China in particular. We source well more than half of our goods domestically and in North America, but there certainly will be an impact.”
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