“The short answer is yes, prices are going to go up,” said David Ortega, a food economist and professor at Michigan State University. “They may not skyrocket for all imported products, but they will go up. Tariffs are a tax on imports, so by definition, they are inflationary.”
While higher tariffs could still be coming after a 90-day-pause, the baseline 10% tariff on all goods, plus higher duties on Chinese products already in effect are a big increase in food costs for American’s budgets, said Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at The Consumer Federation of America.
“The 10% ‘default’ tariffs alone represent a truly historic federal tax increase, maybe the largest in my lifetime, with a highly regressive impact,” Gremillion said.
USA Today: How will Trump’s tariffs affect grocery store prices? We explain.
Reply
