Pushing a shopping cart on the corridor of a Walmart Supercenter, Thomas Jennings, 53, was filled with juices, condiments and everything he could imagine.
“I’m buying twice as much – beans, canned products, flour, whatever you want,” he said. Its strategy is to stock up as much as possible before the last round of import tariffs from US President Donald Trump’s government is in force on Wednesday.
Earlier, in Costco, Jennings bought flour, sugar and bulk water. “There is a recession on the way and I’m preparing for the worst,” he said.
As an increasing number of US consumers, Jennings believes retail prices will soon rise because of Trump’s rates.
Tax Foundation, a non-profit, non-profit research group, said the new tariffs will cost US $ 3.1 trillion over the next 10 years, which is equivalent to a tax increase of approximately $ 2,100 per family alone by 2025.
Even though many buyers adopt an approach to wait to see, some fear that any panic trigger a storage frenzy that intensifies with the expectations of even worse inflation, they told the Reuters.
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Manish Kapoor, founder of GCG, a supply chain management company on the outskirts of Los Angeles, said tariffs are awakening empty shelves from stores found during the pandemic, when supply chain interruptions have led to product shortages and inflation.
“We also saw this during Covid, when everyone went frantically to take everything on store shelves, whether they needed it or not,” Kapoor said.
“We have not reached this level, but people are concerned about the fact that the cost (of the products) will rise and, you know, let’s stock up.”
Walmart and Costco did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
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“You are never sure how much you need”
Angelo Barrio, 55, a retired clothing professional, said Trump’s tactics of “turbling water and causing chaos” worried him and his friends about the direction of the economy.
Barrio began buying long -life products in November, as he feared retailers to pass on the costs of tariffs to their customers.
In Costco this week, he stored Crest toothpaste, soap, water and rice to fill six boxes already full of canned products in his basement with controlled temperature.
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At Walmart, he bought two more bottles of olive oil, raising his total stock to 20 bottles. “You’re never sure how much you need,” he said.
Barrio is friendly to China, which Trump threatened on Monday with an additional 50% rate if Beijing does not remove his retaliatory tariffs over the United States.
“They are simply being penalized without their own fault,” he said. “I was always glad they can provide us with products at such low prices.”
Maggie Collins, who is 60, said she is “trembling with fear” as she worries about Trump’s fares and her impact on the elderly.
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At a Walmart in North Bergen, New Jersey, Collins filled his cart with items such as bath gel and hygienic tampons, preferring Walmart brands that are cheaper than Procter & Gamble and Unilever.
“I observe all prices carefully because I have a fixed income,” said Collins, a health assistant at a nursing home for the elderly. “Paying a higher price somewhere means making adjustments on some other budget.”
On a recent visit to the shopping, where Collins bought ground beef to cook for his grandchildren, his typical meat purchase of 1.36 kg cost $ 16, forcing her to buy the $ 8 version.
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As the youngest generation will deal with it, she wondered. “They are just starting to enter this world where it has become so difficult to survive.”
