Trump to Walmart: Eat My Tariffs—Even If It Bankrupts You!

 

When Trump tells Walmart to absorb his own tariff mess, he’s not making deals—he’s detonating the economy with a Big Mac logic and Whopper-sized ego. Simply put, only a delusional “businessman” blames Walmart for his tariff mess—Trump’s economics are like his tweets: impulsive, irrational, and destructive to everything in their path.

He’s supposed to be the king of the deal, but this time President Trump has served us a business bluff that tastes more like burnt toast than a bold bargain. When Trump told Walmart to “eat the tariffs” insteadof raising prices, he wasn’t making a business decision—he was making a mess. And for someone who boasts about making “huge” deals, he should know better than to pretend that companies can just swallow government-imposed costs like they’re Tic Tacs.

Let’s start with the obvious. Walmart is the largest private employer in the United States, with over 1.6 million American workers. Every week, more than 250 million people shop at Walmart. The company is not some luxury boutique with 300% profit margins. It’s a low-margin retail behemoth that survives on volume. So when Trump slaps tariffs on Chinese imports, he’s not hurting China—he’s punching Main Street in the face and asking Walmart to ice it with a smile.

Tariffs are taxes. Period. And when the government imposes taxes on imports, someone pays. That someone is not Beijing. It’s the American business bringing in those goods, and the American consumer buying them. The idea that a company like Walmart can simply “absorb” the cost of tariffs without passing it on is like telling a restaurant to serve steak at burger prices and “just deal with it.” Eventually, the menu disappears and the doors close.

Walmart’s CEO Doug McMillon has made it clear: they can’t absorb all the tariff-related costs. Margins in retail are thin, and when the price of imported goods rises, those costs must go somewhere. Trump, of all people, should know that. He’s built his image on understanding how money works. But telling Walmart to eat the tariffs is like a magician yelling “abracadabra” and expecting the cost to vanish. That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

Let’s not forget where the tariffs came from in the first place. President Trump imposed them during his trade war with China, aiming to force Beijing to play fair. But instead of a knockout punch, it became a self-inflicted wound. Businesses large and small scrambled to restructure supply chains. Prices for consumer goods climbed. American farmers needed bailouts. And now, years later, Trump’s back in the ring, still swinging with the same broken gloves.

It’s one thing to craft a tough trade policy. It’s another to be delusional about its consequences. The cost of tariffs isn’t paid by foreign governments; it’s paid by Americans. That’s not a debate—it’s economics. When Trump tells a company like Walmart to bear the burden of tariffs without raising prices, he’s not negotiating. He’s hallucinating. And when leaders start treating economic policy like a reality TV script, the real world pays the price.

Let me say it plainly: President Trump is gaslighting the American public and vilifying one of the very companies that helps millions of families stretch their dollars every week. Walmart is not perfect, but to tell a company that employs hundreds of thousands of Americans to just “eat the tariffs” is outrageous. It’s like setting a fire and then yelling at the firefighters for using water.

We can’t afford to pretend that Trump's approach to business is clever when it’s actually careless. You don’t need an MBA to know that if a company doesn’t manage rising costs—especially costs created by government policy—it risks failure. Walmart may be big, but even the strongest bridge will collapse under enough weight. Tariffs are not just numbers on paper. They are pressure points on the economy. And the more pressure Trump adds, the closer we move to a breaking point.

Blaming Walmart for raising prices is like blaming your umbrella for the rain. The tariffs didn’t fall from the sky—they were written and signed by the same man now pretending they don’t exist. Trump wants to act like the tariffs are invisible, but the checkout receipts tell a different story. Families feel it. Business owners feel it. And now even the largest retailer in the world is saying “enough is enough.”

So who do we blame? The business that’s trying to stay afloat and protect jobs? Or the man who created this artificial storm and now wants to blame the wreckage on someone else? It takes a special kind of arrogance to cause a crisis and then demand that others pretend it didn’t happen. When the cock crows in the morning, don’t blame the sun for rising.

And let’s not forget the timing. We’re still living with inflation fatigue, supply chain headaches, and economic uncertainty. Americans are already tightening their belts, and Trump wants to lecture businesses on how to run theirs? That’s not leadership. That’s lunacy wrapped in a red tie.

He claims to be the ultimate capitalist, but his behavior shows the economic instincts of a game show host. Real businesspeople understand trade-offs. Real businesspeople know that cost management isn’t a political stunt—it’s survival. When you impose a new cost on a business, and then tell them they can’t respond to it, you’re not helping the economy. You’re sabotaging it.

Trump has turned tariff policy into a political circus, and now he’s asking Walmart to perform without a net. But even the best acrobat needs a cushion, and when that cushion is pulled away by the very person demanding the trick, the fall becomes fatal. A monkey that pulls down the tree forgets that it too lives in the branches.

If Walmart folds under the weight of policy-created costs, it won’t just be the shareholders who suffer. It will be the workers, the families, the shoppers who depend on those low prices to make ends meet. Trump’s blind loyalty to his own economic fantasy is pushing America toward the edge.

So next time you hear him brag about his business sense, remember this: he’s the only self-proclaimed billionaire who thinks you can run a company by ignoring reality. And if you listen closely, you might just hear the sound of common sense packing its bags and leaving Trump Tower.

Tariffs don’t taste good, Mr. President. And no matter how much ketchup you slather on your business bluff, you can’t disguise the fact that your latest “deal” is a bad batch of baloney.