With only a few weeks left for President-elect Donald Trump to take charge of the Oval Office from Joe Biden, a top Costco executive has warned that Trump’s tariff threat could result in a rise in prices of products across the board.

“When it rains, it rains on everybody,” Gary Millerchip, the chief financial officer of Costco told investors on an earnings call this week, reported The New York Post.

“Of course, tariffs raise costs. That’s not something that we see as a positive in general.”

 

The CFO said that it was unclear what impact Trump’s planned tariffs will have on the “timing and scope of changes” at Costco and other retailers.

Trump’s proposed tariffs at the moment include plans to slap a 25% levy on all goods entering the US from Mexico and Canada.

He also wants to impose an additional 10% tariff on all products from China, in addition to existing tariffs.

While these tariffs might hurt shoppers in the US when it comes to imported products sold at Costco, the extent to which they will impact Australian and New Zealand operations where Costco has 15 stores at the moment is still unclear.

Costco reported a 7.5% increase in sales for its fiscal first-quarter ended November 24.

Revenue from membership fees rose nearly 8% while e-commerce sales rose 13%.

Costco recorded $1.17 billion (A$1.84 billion) membership fees in the fourth quarter, up from $1.08 billion (A$1.7 billion) it made over the same period last year.

For the latest quarter, Costco reported a profit of $1.8 billion (A$2.83 billion), compared with $1.6 billion (A$2.52 billion) a year earlier.

Revenue came in at $62.2 billion (A$97.78 billion), ahead of the $62.05 billion (A$97.54 billion) forecasted by analysts.