It’s Only a Matter of Time Until Americans Pay for Trump’s Tariffs
Whether they come in the form of higher prices, lower quality or fewer options, tariffs can’t hide forever.
One of the reassuring things about the laws of physics is that they’re immutable. They create a stable, predictable physical world, where balls roll downhill, parked cars stay put, and the lawn chair you’re sitting in doesn’t vanish into thin air underneath you. The laws of economics, however, aren’t always so reliable.
Take tariffs. Back on April 2, President Donald Trump announced the most draconian set of tariffs the US has seen in decades. World leaders panicked, markets tanked, and economists of all stripes took to the airwaves, warning that we’d see drastically higher prices as Trump’s import taxes rippled through the economy. The Yale Budget Lab predicted clothing prices would spike 64% in the short run.