President Trump has, through the 2024 campaign and throughout his first 100 days in office, made restarting American production a priority. In one possible result of this emphasis and the president's actions to date, retail colossus Walmart has announced a new Buy American initiative, called "Grow with US".

Walmart is expanding support for American-made products through new programs to help small businesses, the retailer shared exclusively with Axios Tuesday.

Why it matters: Growing the pipeline to have more items made in the U.S. can help insulate the world's largest retailer — and consumers — from the effects of tariffs and the trade war.

The big picture: Walmart announced a new "Grow with US" program and shared details of the upcoming 2025 Open Call to make it "easier for U.S.-based entrepreneurs to navigate the complexities of retail and bring their products to a national stage."

Walmart, on its website, also describes its commitment to American small businesses.

Walmart has a long history of investing in U.S. manufacturing. Since Sam Walton first launched a “Buy American” initiative in 1985, we have been committed to sourcing and selling products that support American jobs. In March 2021, Walmart committed to investing an incremental $350 billion on products made, grown or assembled in the U.S. over the next ten years with the potential to support more than 750,000¹ new jobs.

Now, there's no direct statement from Walmart that their renewed emphasis on American products is due to any policy of the Trump administration. But the two intiatives run hand-in-hand, regardless.

See Also: China's Trying to Put the Screws to Walmart Over Tariffs. Will It Work?

Capitalism: Not the Best Conceivable Economic System, Just the Best Possible One

Sam Walton, Walmart's founder, personally pushed for his chain of discount retail stores to seek out and promote American products. A 1985 New York Times article describes how Walton, concerned with the loss of customers due to small businesses and factories closing, wrote to American manufacturers indicating that he wanted to buy more American-made goods. That became part of Walmart's corporate culture. Those of us who were around in the mid-80s, when Walmart was seeing a period of explosive growth, remember the "American made" stickers on many of their wares. But more recently, as recently as 2022 in fact, as much as 80% of Walmart products were not made in America, but in China.

Now, Walmart seems to be trying to go back to Sam Walton's vision for his chain.

The real difficulty here is the loss of American manufacturing since Sam Walton made his pledge in 1985. President Trump is making a resurgence of American manufacturing a priority, but assuming we do see an American manufacturing renaissance, it will take some time; factories don't spring into being overnight. It will be a matter of years before we see a serious increase in American-made products.

But Walmart's decision, given that Walmart is the nation's largest retailer, is a powerful pull, and not just for major manufacturers but also for small businesses. 

It's vital that the United States once more becomes a country that makes things. Walmart's new emphasis on American products is another quarter thrown in the piggy bank of the American economy, and it's another drop from the leaky Chinese economy.

Help RedState continue to tell the truth about the Trump administration's accomplishments as we continue to usher in the Golden Era of America. Join RedState’s VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership today.