Walmart (WMT) CEO Doug McMillon sat down with President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday, sources told Yahoo Finance.
The one-on-one meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate comes less than two weeks before he takes office for the second time. McMillon is one of many executives meeting with Trump ahead of inauguration day. Others include Amazon (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos, Meta (META) cofounder Mark Zuckerberg, Pfizer (PFE) CEO Albert Bourla, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew.
“Doug enjoyed reconnecting with President Trump on a range of topics,” a Walmart spokesperson told Yahoo Finance, adding that it was a “great conversation.”
McMillon’s tenure atop of Walmart began in 2014 and he previously worked with Trump’s first administration. He served on an advisory council before it was disbanded in August 2017, then on a special task force in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020.
“We stand ready to help move our country forward,” Walmart’s spokesperson added.
Walmart is America’s biggest retailer with 1.6 million US workers, often setting the tone for the industry. The company did not share the topics discussed, but McMillon has previous said that one of his top concerns is impact of potential tariffs.
The president-elect has floated a range of new tariffs, such as 10% tariff on all imports and 60% on Chinese imports to cut the trade deficit.
Potential tariffs could hit the chain’s profit due to elevated costs. The retailer might have pass along that cost to consumers who are healthy, but price sensitive heading into 2025.
McMillon said his team successfully dealt with tariffs under Trump’s first administration back in 2017.
“We’re positioned to manage it, but what I worry about is customers experiencing higher prices, and we’re going do everything we can to try and keep them low,” he told Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor Brian Sozzi.
He then shared that he plans to encourage leaders he meets to “be strategic and really thoughtful with them [tariffs] and help them understand how the math works.”
When port strikes hit the East and Gulf Coast ports last October, Strategic Resource Group’s Burt Flickinger told Yahoo Finance that 80% of the nonfoods goods sold at Walmart come from the Asia Pacific and international regions.
Shares of the company are on a tear this past year, up more than 70%, outpacing the S&P 500’s (^GSPC) nearly 24% gain, leading Walmart to be named Yahoo Finance’s 2024 Company of the Year.
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Brooke DiPalma is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @BrookeDiPalma or email her at bdipalma@yahoofinance.com.
