The disclosure of the US consumer inflation rate, the CPI, last Thursday (11), serves as an indication for the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariff policy on prices. Products like coffee have been up to 10% more expensive since April, the time of tax announcement, but even jewelry, televisions and toys have been impacted.
A survey by CNBC showed that the price of products most sensitive to import tariffs rose more than the basket of products and services measured by CPI, of 1% between April and August. In some cases, items whose prices were falling on average in the last 10 years faced inflation again this year.
Check out the inflation charts for 5 categories in the Trump administration
Among the highest highs is coffee, whose inflation between April and August reached 9.8%. The United States produces less than 1% of its grain consumption and imports more than a third of Arabica species in Brazil. The increase in prices has not yet been impacted by the increase in the rate imposed on Brazil late by 50%, although the expectation is this, the CNBC points out.
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Other products whose prices are usually stable become an unusual increase in price considering average inflation growth for the category. The banana, for example, was 4.9% more expensive in the period analyzed, points to CNBC.
The impact of tariffs is more sense in products on which the United States depend more on imports. Even so, the increase or decrease in price is unequal depending on the behavior of global supply chains, stocks and import logistics. Yale Budget Lab estimates point to an average impact of tariffs in Americans of 17.4%, higher since 1935.
Even for luxury items like watches and jewelry the import tariffs weighed. The sector, from which the US depend on imports for a vast amount of products, was almost all impacted by a 10% rate in April and its prices rose 5% in August, well above the standard of 0.8%.
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In the case of televisions, a category in which the United States saw, in the average of the last 10 years, a retraction in prices between April and August, the increase was 3.1% for the period this year. The country does not manufacture this type of equipment and depends mostly on imports from Mexico, which can still reach a 25%rate, China, with up to 30%for some items, and Vietnam, whose tax was 30%.
Toys, another category of products almost all imported by the US – according to CNBC, 70% of vessels of this type of item comes from China – noted a price increase of 2.5% between April and August, against a reduction in the average history of the last 10 years of 1.9%.
