CarMax suspends long-term growth targets, because of tariffs uncertainty

Richmond-based CarMax made news on Thursday, not the good kind, reporting to investors that it had decided to suspend the timelines for its previously announced long-term growth targets, “given the potential impact of broader macro factors.”

This is don’t-offend-Trump-speak for, The Trump tariffs are killing us, Smalls.

“Why put a target out there that’s really speculative not knowing exactly where this environment is going to go?” CarMax CEO Bill Nash said on a conference call on Thursday.

So, yeah, Trump hit the “pause” button on his dumb tariffs, but the supposed 90-day pause is made of as much thin air as the tariffs themselves – Trump could wake up in the middle of the night with indigestion from his dinner of three Big Macs, two supersized orders of fries and a hot apple pie buried in a vat of vanilla ice cream and decide that they’re on again.

These on-again, off-again tariffs are breaking the fundamental rule of capitalism – which craves stability from the regulatory environment.

What’s surprising with CarMax holding off on sharing its internal thoughts on the near-term is, it’s in the used-car business, which should stand to benefit from the uncertainties facing automakers.

“When you put a tariff on the import of new vehicles, that tends to make people look more to purchasing used vehicles. So, a company like CarMax might look at this and say, wow, you know what, this is maybe going to be good for our business. But there’s a reason they can’t say that,” U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told reporters on a separate conference call on Thursday.

Kaine has been pushing legislation in the U.S. Senate aimed at getting Congress to reassert its control over interstate commerce, which is how the Framers of the U.S. Constitution intended things to work, though, you can’t blame them for not being able to foresee that Congress would end up being run by feckless simpletons.

“If there’s a global tariff regime that costs American families, you know, $2,500 to $4,500 a year, as is the estimate, people are going to have a lot less money to spend,” Kaine said. “And so that means, OK, maybe a tariff on new vehicles coming in might help us, but if people have less money spend, it’s going to hurt us. And at bottom, we don’t know whether the president’s going to lift the 90 days or extend the 90 days, so we just can’t say. And that’s what I’m seeing with everybody.”