Tariffs: Will Trump’s reversal lower prices?

President Donald Trump unveils new tariffs — Trump announced that he was exempting more than 200 agricultural imports from the reciprocal tariffs he ‘proudly implemented in April’

(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)

President Trump ran in 2024 on the promise that he’d tame prices. Now he has “finally admitted his tariffs do the opposite,” said Schuyler Mitchell in Mother Jones. Scrambling to tackle the affordability crisis that drove voters to Democrats in this month’s elections, Trump announced that he was exempting more than 200 agricultural imports—including staples like beef, coffee, and bananas—from the reciprocal tariffs he “proudly implemented in April.” Those import tolls, which range from 10% to 50%, have helped push up the price of numerous groceries: Coffee is up 19% over the past year and beef 16%. Of course, Trump didn’t concede outright that his signature policy is stoking sticker shock, and his administration continues to insist that foreign companies, not American consumers, pay tariffs. “But if tariffs had no impact on consumer prices, then Trump would not now find the need to roll them back.”

While tariffs do raise prices, this reversal “probably won’t make your life more affordable,” said Elisabeth Buchwald in CNN.com. That’s partly because many of the goods on Trump’s list are subject to his other tariffs. In July, for example, he slapped an extra 40% duty on Brazil—the world’s top producer of coffee beans—over the trial of his ally, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. That tariff remains in place. Then there’s the fact that retailers may not pass on the savings from tariff reductions to consumers and could instead use them to pad their bottom line or cover other costs. But even “a limited, begrudging retreat from a foolish, expensive policy is still a step in the right direction,” said Eric Boehm in Reason. And perhaps Trump will now ponder this question: “If reducing tariffs provides relief to consumers who eat bananas and drink coffee, what would removing other tariffs do for American manufacturing?”

If he’s lucky, the Supreme Court will step in and “save Trump from himself,” said Eric Levitz in Vox. The justices heard arguments earlier this month over the president’s power to unilaterally impose tariffs and a majority appeared primed to rule against Trump. He might even “welcome an excuse to scale back his self-sabotage”—his net approval on inflation is now 33 percentage points underwater, down from plus 5 points after his inauguration. A repeal of Trump’s tariffs would lift the average household’s annual income by more than $1,000. That would be a meaningful victory for affordability, at least until Trump finds a new rationale for “deliberately driving up the cost of living.”