Here’s What Target, Best Buy and 3 Other Companies Are Saying About Tariffs
Written by
Dawn Allcot
Edited by
Rebekah Evans
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President Trump’s tariffs threaten to increase prices on many imported items, including furniture, electronics, housewares and even popular produce. In a meeting on April 21, 2025, several top retail CEOs sat down with Trump to discuss the tariffs while the 90-day pause offered breathing room before prices go up, as reported by CNBC.
The National Retail Federation has estimated that tariffs could cost American families up to $78 billion extra on hard and soft goods, including clothing and furniture. Here’s how it could affect some top companies and consumers’ wallets.
Target
Target has struggled in recent years, with relatively flat sales growth in the first quarter of 2025, according to TheStreet.com. To avoid price hikes due to tariffs, Target has tried negotiating with Chinese suppliers to lower their prices — essentially putting the costs of tariffs on the supplier. When one company declined, according to Quartz, Target stopped working with them.
Tariffs may only reflect a portion of Target’s concerns, however. Retail sales, overall, dropped in the first quarter and Target recently faced boycotts after cutting back its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, Quartz reported.
Walmart
Walmart, similarly, tried to negotiate with Chinese suppliers and is trying to keep prices low, even if it means smaller margins. Walmart is expecting net sales growth of 3% to 4% for the year, which bodes well for stock prices, according to RetailDive.com. Walmart may be in a better position than some retailers, since more than two-thirds of its merchandise is made, grown or assembled in the U.S., RetailDive.com reported.
Best Buy
Best Buy execs are also concerned about tariffs, since the consumer electronics retailer relies on China for nearly 60% of its merchandise, according to Fox9.com. The retailer said in an annual report tariffs could “increase cost, disrupt our supply chain and/or impact the availability of underlying technology critical to our operations.”
If the tariffs shrink profit margins for Best Buy, experts told Fox9News, stock prices could drop.
Home Depot
Home Depot was amongst the retailers that participated Monday’s meeting with Trump. The home improvement giant remains less concerned about tariffs than many other big box stores, in part because the majority of its products are sourced from North America, SupplyChainDive.com reported.
The retailer managed tariffs adeptly in 2019 and expects to do the same this year, evaluating the impact of tariffs on every product and making appropriate adjustments to keep costs down.
Apple
Even before the threat of tariffs, Apple had been seeking to move manufacturing of its iPhone from China into India, according to PBS.org. The tech giant has now accelerated this efforts, according to Reuters and plans to manufacture “most” U.S.-sold iPhones in Indian factories by the end of 2026. Although production costs in India are higher, the difference in tariff rates easily offsets that expense. Trump has set tariffs of up to 26% for India, but they could be as low as 10%, while Chinese tariffs could hit three-digit percentages on certain goods.
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