Thousands of Kentucky shop at Walmart every day.

A lot of Kentuckians do.

The store chain says expect prices to go up by the end of the month because of recent tariffs.

Here's a statement from Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, quote, we will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible.

But given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren't able to absorb all the pressure.

Given the reality of narrow retail margins and quote.

Walmart has more than 4000 stores throughout the U.S. as of 2022.

There were 101 Walmarts in Kentucky.

For some insight into Walmart's announced price hike and why it's happening, we spoke to Shannon Stiglitz of the Kentucky Retail Federation.

She says tariffs can affect prices in ways you might not expect.

While the tariffs have been eased from China.

That does not mean that they have been eliminated from the rates at which they were announced in January.

It's also important to remember that, there are tariffs, that are applied from other countries.

It's important to remember, too, that tariffs apply to items that aren't just goods that consumers buy, but that go into those goods, including packaged buying.

So you may have, for example, something that requires aluminum packaging that was previously sourced in a country that is subject to a tariff.

And that packaging is causing those goods to to increase the impact to the consumer is that, they themselves are going to have to find strategies for, shopping again.

We just got, April sales data.

And that data is demonstrating that sales are steady.

So the consumers, voiced their concerns about tariffs, but currently they're continuing to shop.

They too may be trying to stock up.

But again, there is no denying that the tariffs in our opinion, will increase cost to consumers.

And that could lead consumers to shop less, buy less.

That could lead to reduce sales tax collections for the state of Kentucky.

As, consumers make those choices.

I think that you have to know and understand.

I think for retailers this is serving customers is their number one goal.

And so increasing prices, for reasons that are beyond their control, is always a difficulty for them.

On Monday night's Kentucky Tonight, our panel talked about the Trump tariffs and their impact on prices.

The problem with what he is doing is that he does one thing one day, and then a different thing the next day.

He changes course willy nilly all by his instinct, as he himself admits.

The other day he says, well, I think 8,080% seems like a good tariff rate.

And then another day later he agrees to 30%.

The problem is there is no certainty.

This is chaos.

Virtually every economist that you will talk to says that this is this is something that is going to hurt the economy.

It's going to hurt, individuals is going to raise prices.

He was elected to shake the system up and go against the status quo.

These are negotiating tactics.

This is framework.

There's still ongoing negotiations.

So nothing's set in stone.

And, you know, I disagree with Congressman Yarmouth's, you know, he is not going to be the status quo.

So is that the traditional, you know, line of negotiations and whatnot?

Now it's something different.

But President Trump was a different candidate, and he's a different type of president.

And he's producing.

So you can see more of the conversation about tariffs and a whole raft of other topics online and on demand at KETV.

Org slash K-Y tonight.