*** Higher Prices ***

* Trump doesn't care much about how much Americans pay. If he did, he wouldn't have imposed tariffs in the first place. *

Trump is only concerned with deflecting blame when his policies backfire.

However, most companies don't want to, and simply can't, do what Trump demands: tolerate lower profits indefinitely so that Trump can impose any costly tax he pleases without upsetting voters.

CEOs are quickly realizing this. They don't want their customers to think they're raising prices, but more importantly, they need to let shareholders know that profit margins are secure.

Publicly traded companies are legally obligated to optimize profitability. If they fail to do so, their shareholders have the power to remove the CEO and find someone who will perform better.

Privately owned companies face different rules, but very few of them exist to sacrifice profits for some politician.

Indirect phrasing is now necessary because Trump has threatened retaliation against companies that act logically and pass on the higher costs he imposes on them to the next customer in line.

After Walmart CEO Doug McMillon recently stated that "higher tariffs will lead to higher prices," Trump, with his usual bravado, went after Walmart.

The solution for all these companies is to raise prices without thoroughly explaining the reasons why.

* There are plenty of ways to do this without having to use the T-word... *

.....

Source: Rick Newman / Yahoo Finance