With no end in sight for the U.S. war with Iran and President Donald Trump threatening new tariffs for everything from wildfire smoke to oil sales, American consumers are feeling the squeeze of higher prices at the pump and the check-out line.
As a result, the president has taken to publicly calling for companies to lower their prices as a show of patriotism and even support for his agenda — pressure that he has suggested in recent weeks is working.
First, it was Walmart. Then came grocery chain Giant Eagle this weekend, which Trump said was “stepping up in a big and bold way to answer my call” to lower prices via a summer promotional sale.
“Other Grocery Chains must immediately follow the lead of these absolute Patriots at Giant Eagle and Walmart,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
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But it’s not clear the president had anything to do with these discounts.
Ricky Volpe, an agribusiness professor at California Polytechnic State University, said he expects promotional activity to be “red hot right now” as food-price inflation accelerates.
“I will just say, from the outset, it is absolutely not clear if the actions of Walmart or Giant Eagle are a result of [Trump]. It’s a chicken-and-egg question because summer promotions are very common,” Volpe told NOTUS.
This was especially true for Walmart’s summer promotion, a source close to the company told NOTUS. Walmart’s lower summer prices went into effect a week before Trump declared that the company had launched the savings event “at my Administration’s request.”
“The timing there I think is just important to note, because the pricing went into effect before anything else had happened,” the source said.
When asked directly if Giant Eagle launched its summer “On Sale This Season” promotion in response to or in conjunction with the Trump administration, the supermarket chain did not directly answer.
“We are aware of the President’s message in support of the On Sale This Season pricing initiative Giant Eagle launched on July 9,” the company wrote in an emailed statement. “We look forward to this program helping our customers save all summer long.”
When asked whether the administration had any communication with the supermarket chains, spokesperson Kush Desai said: “The Trump Administration stays in close contact with retailers to ensure savings are getting passed on to American consumers, and results like this prove the strategy is working.”
A more compelling explanation for the sweeping summer sale at Giant Eagle is Kroger’s ongoing effort to acquire the grocery chain in a $1.65 billion deal, Volpe said.
“Giant Eagle announcing these massive price rollbacks, I would gather, is more likely related to this pending acquisition that’s making a lot of headlines in an attempt to assuage concerns,” Volpe said.
There is “no real sense of seasonality or cyclicality to food prices in general,” according to Volpe, and there are a multitude of reasons why a retailer might decide to lower prices, including competing with other chains and driving traffic to certain stores. Linking promotional activity to any presidential administration creates a “slippery slope for these retailers,” Volpe added.
“I really, really doubt that any retailer of any stripe wants to credit the Trump administration for the lower prices, and that’s not a political statement,” Volpe said. “It’s because linking their behavior to pressure from the president sets a worrisome precedent for these retailers.”
Walmart and its subsidiary Sam’s Club lowered the price of beef in its recent savings campaign — which is one of Trump’s continued policy goals. Walmart and Sam’s Club also lowered prices on various items to honor the 250 anniversary of the nation’s founding, according to Trump.
“Walmart will, in particular, be dropping the price for a pound of ground beef by almost 15%, among many other products,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This is a huge deal for the many millions of Americans who, smartly, shop at Walmart, which is a truly patriotic Company who loves the U.S.A.”
Giant Eagle also lowered its beef prices, as well as roughly 300 other items. The grocery chain launched its summer version of the On Sale This Season, after the “company saw a strong customer response to its fall” version of the pricing effort, according to Giant Eagle’s press release, which made no mention of the president.
The Consumer Price Index for all items increased 3.5% in June year over year, though prices dipped .4% in the month of June as a temporary pause in the Iran war slowed fuel prices.
Americans, though, still think groceries are too expensive.
In a Washington Post-Ipsos poll conducted from July 8 to July 13, 66% of Americans said they would describe the cost of groceries as unaffordable — a notable increase from the 45% who answered that way in February before the war.
Americans are also concerned about broader economic woes. Ninety-five percent of U.S. adults believe the country is suffering an affordability crisis, according to a survey taken by the Harris Poll for The Guardian in May and June 2026.
Trump has previously called affordability a “hoax” and a “Democrat scam.”
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