A reminder: Tariffs are a regressive tax. The anti-Robin Hood. Trump's current tariff settings effectively impose a tax rate on low-income households that's roughly TRIPLE that on high-income folks. That's not the way taxes are supposed to work. [source: budgetlab.yale.edu/research/sta...

“.. it just doesn’t make financial sense for us to offer discounts because our costs of goods are so high because of the tariffs ..” @bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Retailers are preparing for a holiday season clouded by tariffs, inflation and economic uncertainty. Consumers will see higher prices, fewer deep discounts and tighter inventory in some categories.

Today from me: Come for the cat picture, stay for the exploration of how specialty grocery stores serving immigrant diasporas are seeing the most concentrated impact from super-high tariffs on places like Myanmar and Bangladesh. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/11/b...

Groceries saw their biggest jump in nearly three years last month, a worrisome sign for inflation-weary shoppers. Tariffs are contributing to higher prices for imported staples like bananas and coffee.

Generations have worked family farms in the U.S. Now, with costs high, prices low and tariffs causing additional difficulties, farmers say they're at risk of losing it all.

How Trump’s tariffs are crushing small businesses while big retailers weather the costs

The great tariff shakedown

Inflation and tariffs are raising the price of shelf-stable food just when the most vulnerable Americans need to stock up, @yeahyeahyasmin.bsky.social reports.

“The greater threat to the economy of the United States is not that the Trump Administration’s tariffs will be struck down, but that they will be allowed to remain in place.” I am proud to join 480 economist colleagues across the political spectrum, incl. 9 Nobel laureates, in signing this letter.

Many farmers support President Trump. But they have been crushed by the effects of his trade war with China. Now, they’re bewildered by his decision to buy beef from Argentina to bring down prices, which they see as antithetical to his campaign promises.

Can you believe it?! The great orange conman lied to us about tariffs!

“.. It’s to the point now where .. I could lose everything ... Being a small business owner isn’t worth it when your country turns on you,” said Jared Hendricks, the CEO of Village Lighting, a small business selling Christmas products. @cnbc.com www.cnbc.com/2025/10/17/h...

What a cluster: "One of Europe’s biggest farm machinery firms halts US exports over ‘hidden’ tariffs" www.theguardian.com/business/202... "You have to get paperwork from the supplier to the supplier to the supplier. That is pretty much impossible"

Tariffs are pushing prices higher and consumers are feeling the hit, Fed's Beige Book shows

Tariff shocks hit small margin, outsourced parts manufacturers hard - and the market power of the auto assembly oligopsonists means they can't necessarily pass these costs on. Some parts makers don't expect to survive the year. www.ft.com/content/55d7...

Just a reminder that the Constitution gives Congress the power to set tariffs. It could end this madness any day they chose to discover their power.

SCOTUS could still declare emergency tariffs illegal — which would be a fun cherry on this sundae. 🍨

Fox: Roasted coffee prices are up 22% in the past year. There's a 50% tariff on coffee from Brazil. That's the nation's biggest coffee supplier. Take a look at this bag right here. The container that bag came in is costing this coffee shop $68,000 more than it did over the summer

From NYT Business: Trump’s tariffs on timber, wood, furniture and kitchen cabinets could raise the cost of building and buying a home. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/b...

NEW from me: In his 2nd term, Trump has pursued the largest trade war in modern US history—with 1 glaring omission. Computer imports are almost entirely exempt from tariffs It's a special carveout that AI companies are now reliant on for their data center buildout🧵 www.apricitas.io/p/the-tariff...

US prices behaving pretty much as you'd expect after tariffs, not least given time lags and the various mark-ups on top of import costs www.ft.com/content/f4bd...

Aren’t tariffs just wonderful? First, you tell everybody that somebody else pays them. Then you create confusion about how high they will be. Then you set tariffs at absurd levels. You act surprised when countries object. When your farmers complain you use all the tariff revenue to appease them.

Again, getting to $1T/yr in tariff revenues would require ~tripling tariffs from their current level Either the administration intends to further massively expand their trade war, is just blatantly lying about the revenue projections, or some combination of the two.

UBS, on the new softwood timber/lumber tariffs: ".. We estimate that these new tariffs will add approximately $720 to the cost of an average home due to the increased lumber tariffs. Additionally, the levies on cabinets and vanities are expected to increase costs by about $280 per home."

Fresh tariffs on upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities recently announced by President Trump on social media could cause already high prices to rise even further, and deter some Americans from embarking on home renovation projects.

Effect of tariffs I've seen — Higher clothing prices overall — Overseas sellers covering tariff costs, but passing cost to the consumer — US stores dropping brands. Example: No Man Walks Alone won't be carrying Norbit this fall bc tariff uncertainty — Fewer deals. Ebay shuts down overseas sellers

Once again, all of these tariffs, whether imposed under the sham justification of IEEPA & "national emergency," or the sham justifications of either Section 301 and 232, make a total mockery of both the rationale & process of these laws, & every single one of these Cold War relic laws needs to go.

Don't worry too much about Trump's just-announced tariffs on patented drugs. Producers dare not pass the cost increases on. After all, consumers have all the leverage as they can threaten to just not buy essential medications. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/b...

President Trump says he will put import taxes of 50% on kitchen cabinets, 30% on upholstered furniture and 25% on heavy trucks. He also says he will put a 100% import tax on pharmaceutical drugs unless their manufacturers are building plants in the U.S.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the U.S. will impose a 100% tariff on “all any branded or patented Pharmaceutical Product” entering the country from Oct. 1. The measure will not apply to companies building drug manufacturing plants in the U.S., Trump added.

ALCOA CEO: “.. Tariffs can change very quickly, and therefore we don’t make an investment in the US based on a tariff.” @semafor.com @beyer.house.gov www.semafor.com/article/09/2...

You’d think someone would say something. @wsj.com @jeffsonnenfeld.bsky.social www.wsj.com/business/ins...

PANTHEON: “.. Consumers have so far suffered only about one-third of the tariff-related price rises that we think they ultimately will face. In addition, growth in wage and salary income likely will slow .. “.. we expect real consumption to rise at a mere 0.5-to-1% annualized pace in Q4.”

JPMorgan on the Import Price Index: Import prices are reported before tariffs; the lack of any substantial decline in import prices given the surge in the effective tariff rate to roughly 15-16% suggests that those additional costs are being borne nearly entirely by US businesses and consumers.

Congressional Budget Office director Phillip Swagel said that President Donald Trump’s tariffs have pushed up inflation, “not by a lot, but by enough to show.” He also said that inflation has run “higher than we expected.”

Tariff-fueled price hikes have arrived — and hitting these items first:

The Trump administration's tariffs are slowly rippling through the economy and starting to push up prices for some products, government data shows.

An analysis published by The Budget Lab at Yale finds Trump’s tariff hikes will likely increase the number of Americans living in poverty by 875,000 in 2026. https://cnn.it/3VbfUK8

Talked to 23 people who suddenly have to pay huge tariffs or otherwise cannot get chainmail from Pakistan, yarn from France, retro computers from Japan, metal music from the Netherlands, DVDs from Germany, cosplay supplies, sunscreen, etc. www.404media.co/its-just-a-m...

Reporter: Dismal jobs report Friday, but it was especially grim for industries most exposed to tariffs. Tariff exposed industries started losing jobs shortly after this trade war started. US manufacturing lost jobs 4 months in a row. This is the exact opposite of what the White House is looking for

With his IEEPA tariff powers in jeopardy, President Trump is now threatening to use a different trade tool, known as Section 301, to push back on the EU over its fines on Google and other U.S. tech companies. Would require an investigation, but could lead to steep new tariffs on the EU.

Perhaps not entirely surprising, but trade policy uncertainty is preventing the kind of reshoring from China that is ostensibly one of the administration's central goals. For now, firms are staying put. www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

Today's ISM survey commentary is fun: "Tariffs continue to wreak havoc" "There is absolutely no activity in the transportation equipment industry. This is 100 percent attributable to current tariff policy. "We are also in stagflation: Prices are up due to material tariffs, but volume is way off.”

The cost of eating healthy is climbing as new tariffs on imported fruits and vegetables begin to impact grocery stores and restaurants, pushing prices higher for consumers.

It’s almost like these tariffs weren’t well thought through…

Six months into tariffs, businesses don’t know how to price anything. Tariffs keep changing. Big retailers won’t pay more. And everyone is afraid of angering consumers. ‘Everyone is struggling to figure out what to do.’ www.wsj.com/business/ret...

Goods prices are rebounding amidst the trade war—excluding food and energy, prices are up at the fastest pace since the COVID inflation surge, and increases in durable goods prices are currently larger than at any point from 1995-2020.

Tariff inflation effects are just getting started. (via Apollo)