Trump’s tariffs are making price increase photos from big box stores go viral
A growing genre of social media posts now tracks the rising costs of goods in real terms as President Donald Trump’s tariffs hit some of the biggest retail stores in the U.S.
On Reddit pages for stores like Walmart, Target, and Michaels, users have posted images of price tags like receipts, showing what Trump’s tariffs have already cost consumers over the past several months. Price tags for a Jurassic Park-themed T. rex dinosaur toy at Walmart show the retail price jumping from a sale price of $20 up to $55. Elsewhere, a charging cable went from $9.99 to $17.99 and a sheet cake pan went from $24.99 to $39.99. The photos are in line with price increases Business Insider tracked using data from the third-party service AisleGopher.
As a meme format, side-by-side images of price tags are simple and effective, communicating the idea of tariffs stoking inflation in an easy-to-grasp, visual way. They have the opposite effect of Walmart’s old 1990s-era “Rollback” campaign in which the big box store’s smiley face mascot made products magically cheaper by bouncing from price tag to price tag. And unlike the fuzzy math of Trump’s Reciprocal Tariffs board, the prop he used at his press conference to first announce his tariff regime, these tariff price tag posts communicate a message simply without needing any complicated math: prices are going up.
Walmart reported it grew sales 4% in the most recent quarter, but its net income fell to $4.49 billion, same-store sales fell, and the company admits it won’t be able to eat the cost of tariffs itself. CEO Doug McMillon argued Walmart was “positioned to manage the cost pressure from tariffs as well or better than anyone.” While more than two-thirds of the products the retailer sells are made, assembled, or grown in the U.S., he said tariffs will pass on some inflated costs to consumers.
“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,” McMillon said on Walmart’s earnings call last month. Other companies including Best Buy, Costco, Mattel, Macy’s, and Nike have said they already have or soon will raise some prices due to tariffs.
Like “I Did That” stickers of then-President Joe Biden at gas station pumps during Biden’s term or egg price trackers under Trump, tariff price tag photos draw attention to cold, hard numbers. But sometimes the specific numbers matter less than the overall feeling.
One post on the Target subreddit shows an end-cap display selling Crayola 10-pack markers mistakenly listed for $99 instead of 99 cents. The photo is jokingly labeled with the caption, “Tariffs be like…,” but the months-old meme needs to be updated. According to the third-party service PriceTracker, Target hasn’t sold those markers as cheap as 99 cents since 2024. They now cost $2.59.