Walmart's finance chief said the retailer is facing "day-to-day" sales volatility amid President Donald Trump's tariff uncertainty.
"We are one week into this new tariff environment, and we're still working through what it means to us," John Rainey, the company's CFO, said at the Walmart Investment Community Meeting on Wednesday.
Rainey said that a third of Walmart's offerings are imported from outside the US. China and Mexico are the "most significant" countries that Walmart imports from, he said.
As China and the US's trade tensions continue to escalate, Rainey said as well that the company is facing increased uncertainty.
"For the current quarter, the uncertainty and decline in consumer sentiment have led to a little more sales volatility week-to-week and, frankly, day-to-day, but we still expect Q1 sales to be in the range of our guidance of 3 to 4% growth," Rainey said.
He said that Walmart's priorities in the US's volatile tariff environment are to keep prices low and manage its inventory well.
Rainey's comments came before Trump announced his latest set tariff increase on goods from China. In the past few weeks, Trump has been stacking additional duties on China, which on Wednesday reached 125%.
As Trump raised China's tariff rate to 125%, the administration temporarily lowered tariffs on all other countries to 10% for 90 days.
In November, shortly after Trump won the 2024 presidential elections, Rainey told CNBC that the company would likely raise prices if Trump implemented the tariffs he promised on his campaign trail. While running for president, Trump promised to impose tariffs of 60% and more on China.
"We never want to raise prices," Rainey told CNBC in November. "Our model is everyday low prices. But there probably will be cases where prices will go up for consumers."
During an earnings call in February, Walmart's CEO, Doug McMillon, said that tariffs are something the company's "managed for many years."
"We'll just continue to manage that," McMillon said.
In response to a request for comment, a representative for Walmart directed BI to comments made during the investor conference.
April 15, 4.52 a.m. — This story has been updated with a comment from a representative for Walmart.
