Walmart reveals how it is going to use the nearly $3 billion it got in tariff refunds
Walmart reveals how it is going to use the nearly $3 billion it got in tariff refunds
Brendan RasciusFri, August 21, 2026 at 10:52 PM UTC
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Walmart has revealed how it intends to use the nearly $3 billion in tariff refunds it has received from the federal government (Getty Images)
Walmart has revealed how it plans to deploy the nearly $3 billion in tariff refunds it received from the federal government.
During an earnings call, Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said the company had collected “substantially all” of the $2.9 billion in refunds for which it was eligible.
The payout is the biggest publicly reported by a U.S. company since the federal government started returning tariff funds, following the Supreme Court’s February decision to strike down much of the president’s tariff authority, according to NewsNation. As of July, the government had issued roughly $100 billion in refunds.
For Walmart, much of that money is set to flow back to shoppers, executives have said.
“We've taken a disciplined approach to investing these funds back into customer experience and price leadership, prioritizing investment in grocery and general merchandise categories,” Rainey said on the Thursday call.
“We're investing heavily in price because customers need us to,” CEO John Furner added. “Customers tell us they're still feeling some pressure.”
The company, the nation’s largest private employer, said that it rolled out more than 11,000 temporary price cuts in the U.S. during the second quarter — up from about 7,000 in the first.
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Still, the burst of discounts arrives at a less-than-rosy moment for the retail behemoth.
Walmart’s comparable sales growth in U.S. stores came in at 2.6 percent, its smallest increase in over six years, according to The Wall Street Journal. By comparison, sales rose 4.1 percent in the first quarter.
The market did not greet the numbers warmly: Walmart shares fell 9 percent Thursday and are now down more than 20 percent from their May high, according to NBC News.
In May, Walmart warned that it might be forced to raise prices as fuel costs climbed (Getty Images)
Company executives attributed some of the sales slowdown to rising fuel costs amid the ongoing war in Iran.
“As you go through month-by-month in the last quarter, you can tell when fuel prices increase and got above $4, and perhaps there's a psychological impact to that, that there are choices that consumers are making,” Rainey said.
In May, Walmart warned that it might be forced to raise prices as fuel costs climbed.
Walmart’s vast reach makes it a closely watched indicator of consumer spending: the company says more than 150 million customers visit its website or stores every week.
According to a recent Financial Times survey, a majority of Americans, 53 percent, believe their current financial situation is worse than it was at the end of Joe Biden’s presidency.
Source: “AOL Money”
