Many companies across the country promising not to raise prices on customers despite Trump’s import taxes.
Some large corporations, like Home Depot, have ruled out price hikes for now, saying they have the flexibility to adapt. Others, including Nike and Walmart, plan to raise some prices, while Target this week called doing so a “very last resort.” Many other businesses are trying to hold firm, too, as consumers grow more pessimistic and hunt harder for bargains. The online clothing and home goods seller Quince recently told customers it’s committed to keeping prices steady “for as long as we can,” despite sourcing many items from China.
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Main Street shops and other small operators say they feel boxed in by the trade war. Some have been trying in the meantime to leverage “anti-tariff” promotions and other sales gambits. Many see the ever-changing U.S. duties as an existential threat that they’ll need customers’ help to survive. In a Main Street Alliance survey of small-business owners this spring, 81.5% said they’d have to raise prices to handle tariffs, and 31.5% said they’d lay off workers.
“When you go back and forth from 10% to 140% to 30%, and now you’ve got a blanket environmental tariff regime, it is impossible to plan,” said Richard Trent, executive director of the advocacy group, which represents over 30,000 small businesses. “Small-business owners are operating on such thin margins. The least that we could do is give them a modicum of stability.”
Some entrepreneurs see their duty to customers much the same way.
“I won’t be raising prices,” said Carla Minervini, who runs All Fired Up, a pottery studio in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. “I cannot do that to my community.”
Last month, all four of Amelia Morgan’s U.S. suppliers announced 20% price hikes on the plaques, trophies and other components her awards business depends on. Recognitions Awards and More, based in Aviston, Illinois, can’t eat the added costs of those materials for long, Morgan said.
She has held off on raising her own prices for weeks but expects she’ll need to finally give in sometime next month.
“We’ve got people who depend on us to be able to pay the mortgage, be able to buy groceries, make car payments,” Morgan said of the six workers she and her husband employ. “We have to make sure that we stay profitable.”
