President Donald J. Trump welcomes members of the press to the State Dining Room Monday, January 14, 2019, with food from Domino’s, McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King. Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)
McDonald’s has experienced its largest decline in United States sales since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago, largely due to uncertainty stemming from President Donald Trump’s tariffs, the Financial Times reported Thursday.
In the quarter ending in March, same-store sales in the U.S. dropped by 3.6 percent compared to the previous year, per a report published in the Financial Times on Thursday. The president's tariffs are said to have negatively impacted consumer confidence.
The report cited the world’s largest burger chain’s earnings report released on Thursday, according to which, this drop was primarily driven by a decrease in customer visits.
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Social media users reacted to the news and said that the drop in McDonald's sales underscores how the economy is under-performing under the Trump administration.Economic strategist Marko Kolanovic wrote on the social platform X, "In a recession, people prefer to eat at Microsoft."
Economic analyst Barry Ritholdz shared the report and said, "Soft data (sentiment) turning into hard data (sales) 'McDonald’s has posted the biggest drop in US sales since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic five years ago as uncertainty caused by Donald Trump’s tariffs weighs heavily on consumer sentiment.'"
But some argued that McDonalds' sales decline may not necessarily be the result of Trump's tariff policy.
User @NikLentz posted: "Fast food got too expensive. They pushed too many price hikes. You need the app to save 30%, but most don't use it. Delivery companies did the same thing and now they're paying for it. When you ram through price hikes above inflation necessity you pay for it on the back end."
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Meanwhile, Trump on Wednesday blamed the stock market's under-performance in the first 100 days of his administration on former President Joe Biden. In a post on his Truth Social platform, the president defended his economic approach and called on Americans to "be patient," even as reports indicated that the United States' economy shrank in the year's first quarter.
During a press conference along with his Cabinet following the Truth Social statement to mark the first 100 days of the administration, Trump doubled down on this position, saying that Biden may be responsible even for the next quarter.
“You could even say the next quarter is sort of Biden," he told reporters Wednesday.
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