Third-quarter earnings calls from major U.S. companies like Kroger, Burlington, Kohl’s, and Dollar Tree provide damning evidence about Donald Trump’s failing economy. Executives are expressing major concerns, highlighting tariff-driven cost pressures, persistent inflation, weak consumer sentiment, and significant economic uncertainty heading into 2026. It’s no surprise: Everyday Americans are struggling under the weight of skyrocketing prices and the highest unemployment rate in years, forcing them to cut back on spending. 

In response, DNC Rapid Response Director Kendall Witmer released the following statement: 

“The latest earnings calls are yet another warning sign for Donald Trump’s economy. His disastrous trade war is making the economy a living hell for consumers and businesses, driving up prices with no end in sight. How much more damage will Trump do before he finally pulls back from his reckless economic agenda?”

Here’s what business executives told their investors during their Q3 2025 earnings calls: 

BJ’s CFO Laura Felice: “With regards to guidance and as we have been speaking to on this call, the macro environment is challenging. We have made decisions to be prudent with inventories in the face of this environment, challenging our ability to grow general merchandise sales.”

Kroger CEO Ron Sargent: “Inflation and uncertainty around government funding, combined with the pause in SNAP benefits during the final weeks of the quarter, added incremental pressure to our third quarter identical sales without fuel.”

Kohl’s CEO Michael Bender: “While these results are encouraging, we continue to operate in an environment where our customers are becoming increasingly choiceful as their discretionary income remains pressured. This is especially notable in our low-to-middle-income consumers as well as in our younger customers. These customers are becoming increasingly savvy and are seeking more value. We expect this customer behavior to continue into the fourth quarter as we believe the macroeconomic environment will remain uncertain.”

President Of Hormel Foods John Ghingo: “I mean, I think the consumer environment, I would still say the consumer is quite strained, feeling the cumulative effects of inflation, feeling some of the uncertainty in the macro environment. Consumer sentiment remains quite low. So as we look out to 2026, I mean, we are factoring that into our guidance, meaning we expect the consumer to continue to exhibit value-seeking behavior throughout the year.”

Five Below CEO Dan Sullivan: “So we’re not out of the tariff woods by any means, but it is fully reflected in both our actuals to date and in our fourth quarter outlook.”

Dollar Tree CFO Stewart Glendinning: “The key drivers of this improvement were merchandise margin, successful execution of our 5 merchant levers: renegotiation, reengineering, shifting country of origin, discontinuing and targeted price changes, all contributed to our ability to manage increased costs from tariffs.”

Burlington CFO Kristin Wolfe: “There are potential headwinds like tariff-driven price increases, which could put additional inflationary pressure on our core customer.”