Trump’s Tariff Plan Will Raise Prices for Consumers
The tariffs will raise prices, limit choices, harm productivity, and act as a tax on importing businesses too.
Trump’s tariff plan is “economically ignorant, geopolitically dangerous, and politically misguided,” says Scott Lincicome, head of Cato’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. He adds that Paul Winfree, Trump’s Domestic Policy Council deputy in 2017, has denounced the tariff proposal, saying it “would impose a massive tax on the folks who it intends to help.”
According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Trump tariffs “would reduce after-tax incomes by about 3.5 percent for those in the bottom half of the income distribution,” and “would cost a typical household in the middle of the income distribution at least $1,700 in increased taxes each year.”
The Center for American Progress reports that Trump’s tariffs “would amount to a roughly $1,500 annual tax increase for the typical household, including a $90 tax increase on food, a $90 tax increase on prescription drugs, and a $120 tax increase on oil and petroleum products.” .
Erica York, senior economist at the Tax Foundation, says Trump’s 10 percent tariff ring “would amount to a $300 billion annual tax hike, reducing the size of the US economy by 0.7 percent and eliminating 505,000 jobs.” That’s before we even consider foreign retaliation.