Walmart finance manager said the retailer faced sales volatility “day by day in the midst of the price uncertainty of President Donald Trump.
“We are a week in this new pricing environment, and we are still working on what it means for us,” said John Rainey, the company’s financial director on Wednesday, at the meeting of the Walmart investment community.
Rainey said that a third of Walmart offers are imported from outside the United States. China and Mexico are the “most important” countries of Walmart imports, he said.
While China and the United States’ trade tensions continue to degenerate, Rainey also said that the company was facing increased uncertainty.
“For the current quarter, the uncertainty and the decline in feelings of consumers have led to a little more volatility of sales from week to week and, frankly, day by day, but we are still expecting the first quarter sales in the range of our advice of 3 to 4%,” said Rainey.
He said Walmart’s priorities in the United States Volatil Tariff Environment are to maintain low prices and manage its inventory well.
Rainey’s comments came before Trump announced his last increase in China’s price. In recent weeks, Trump has stacked additional tasks on China, which reached 125%on Wednesday.
While Trump increased the tariff rate of China to 125%, the administration temporarily lowered prices on all other countries to 10% for 90 days.
In November, shortly after Trump won the presidential elections in 2024, Rainey told CNBC that the company would probably increase the prices if Trump implemented the prices he had promised on his campaign track. While presenting himself to the presidency, Trump promised to impose prices of 60% and more on China.
“We never want to increase prices,” Rainey at CNBC told November. “Our model is low prices every day. But there will probably be cases where prices will increase for consumers.”
During Walmart CEO, Doug McMillon said in February, said that the prices are something that “managed for many years”.
“We will continue to manage this,” said McMillon.
Walmart representatives did not respond to a comments from Business Insider.
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