Walmart cut some prices this month. President Trump wants you to think he did it.

On July 6, Walmart and Sam's Club announced lower prices on thousands of summer items — grills, swimming pools, Coca-Cola, sweet corn, and ground beef. The same day, Trump jumped on Truth Social to take the credit.

"Great news! I have just been informed that one of the biggest, best, and smartest Retailers in America, Walmart, will be lowering prices, by a lot, at my Administration's request... Walmart will, in particular, be dropping the price for a pound of ground beef by almost 15%."

There's one problem. Walmart's own press release never mentioned Trump. Not once. As The Hill put it, the company's statement was silent on any role for the president. It was a normal summer sale. Trump just stood in front of it and said "I did that."

The price cut isn't what he says it is

Start with his number. Trump said "almost 15%." The real cut on a pound of ground beef was from $6.74 down to $5.94. That's about 12%, not 15%. Small thing, but it tells you how this works: round up, brag, move on.

Now the bigger lie — the one that actually costs you money. That "new low" price of $5.94 a pound is just about where beef sat last May. All the sale did was undo a year of increases. Even after the cut, a pound of ground beef is roughly 50% more expensive than it was before the COVID pandemic. It's still about 40 cents a pound higher than the day Trump took office.

So when Trump says he lowered your beef prices, here's what really happened: prices went way up on his watch, Walmart knocked a little off for a summer promotion, and Trump took a victory lap for getting you back to where you were a year ago — while you're still paying far more than you did before he was president.

One shopper put it plainly in the comments under a local TV station's post about the sale: "Is that why they raised some prices, so they can lower them down to where they were before[?]"

Groceries are still crushing people

This isn't just about one pound of beef. The whole grocery aisle is squeezing families right now.

• About half of all Americans say they're struggling to afford everyday basics like groceries and gas, according to a new poll from The Guardian and Harris Poll.
• Consumer prices climbed 4.2% over the year ending in May — the biggest annual jump in three years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• Throwing a backyard barbecue for 10 people now runs about $161, up 2.4% from last year, per Wells Fargo's Summer BBQ report. Ground beef alone is about 14% higher than it was a year ago.

And it's not getting better. The USDA predicts beef prices will be 7.5% higher in 2026 than in 2025. So the "cheap beef" Trump is bragging about is a summer sale in a year when beef keeps costing more.

Remember the promise

This is worth sitting with, because Trump didn't run on "I'll get prices back to last year's levels after they spike." He ran on making things cheaper immediately.

Standing in front of a table of groceries during the campaign, he vowed to "immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One." That was the whole pitch. It didn't happen. Grocery costs kept ticking up almost every month. Now, instead of admitting that, he's grabbing credit for a store's summer sale and calling it a win.

He's a big reason prices are high

Here's the part Trump would rather you forget: his own policies are pushing your grocery bill up.

Take tariffs. Walmart gets around 60% of its imports from China. Trump's tariffs land directly on goods like that. Last year, he even told Walmart to "eat" the cost of his tariffs instead of raising prices. Walmart raised prices anyway — it reported tariff-driven price increases on electronics and appliances earlier this year. Tariffs are a tax, and shoppers are the ones who pay it.

Beef has its own pressures — drought and high demand are real. But the war in Iran added to it, too. War-related fuel disruptions made fertilizer and fuel more expensive, which made cattle feed more expensive, which makes your burger more expensive. These aren't acts of God. They're downstream of choices made in Washington.

The bottom line

Trump found a Walmart summer sale, slapped his name on it, and told millions of Americans he made their food cheaper. He didn't. Ground beef is still about 50% above pre-COVID levels, overall prices are still climbing 4.2% a year, and the government's own forecasters expect beef to end the year 7.5% higher than last year.

The real story isn't in a Truth Social post. It's on your receipt. And it says the man who promised to lower prices on Day One is now taking credit for a discount that barely dents the damage.

When someone tells you they fixed a problem they helped cause — and the fix is you paying almost exactly what you paid a year ago — that's not good news. That's a sales pitch.

Source

Elizabeth L. Cline, Congratulations! You can still pay record-high beef prices at Walmart (and pretty much everywhere else), Arkansas Times, July 8, 2026. Lead photo by Elizabeth L. Cline / Arkansas Times.