Days after Walmart announced its intention to raise prices due to President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods, the company clarified that it will also, to borrow a term from the president’s aggressively worded social-media retort, “EAT” some of the higher costs on its own.

Trump has also assured the company, “I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!"

Nonetheless, while pondering how to keep prices low for his constituents, the president would be wise to recall the failed Nixon-Ford-Carter-era price-control experiments of the 1970s.

Though the circumstances were different and the tactics more extensive and official than Trump’s public pressure on one company, we learned a lesson that’s as true today as it was then: It’s practically impossible to control inflationary forces without addressing their root cause.

It may be that Walmart shareholders, as Trump prefers, will earn less on their investments in order to cover much of the cost of stocking the shelves with foreign goods that have been........

© The Hill