Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner said he gives the Biden administration credit for helping to alleviate supply chain problems with its actions on ports and trucking.
In an interview with MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle on Monday, Furner said there has been a lot of innovation with supply chains and noted that consumer demand is very strong.
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“I would like to give the administration credit for helping to do things like get the ports open 24 hours a day, to open up some of the trucking lines,” he said. “And then all the way through the supply chain, there’s been a lot of innovation.”
Furner said the number of containers Walmart has moved through the ports has grown significantly. He also noted that Walmart has seen some inflation in its pricing.
“We’ve seen a little bit of inflation in the single-digit range around the store — it’s kinda spread evenly across categories,” he said.
Furner said Walmart has strong staffing for the holiday season. He credited the slowdown of the delta variant of COVID-19 and increased wages.
The United States is still emerging from a significant supply chain disruption starting in early 2021 during its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies have faced difficulties with distributing products from overseas across the U.S. due to bottlenecks at various points in the supply chain.
President Joe Biden announced on Nov. 9 on Twitter that he had discussed the supply chain with the CEOs of Walmart, Target, UPS, and FedEx.
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During a Nov. 16 press conference, Gene Seroka, Port of Los Angeles executive director, said the amount of cargo sitting at the docks for nine days or more had declined by 29% since Oct. 24. The port is one of the busiest in the U.S. and has faced significant pileups.
