Americans now understand tariffs—and realize they'll only raise costs
Many of President-elect Donald Trump’s supporters, who believed his promise to “Make America Great Again,” are about to face an inconvenient truth: tariffs will hurt them more than they anticipated. New data from Global Strategist Group show that three in five Americans view tariffs unfavorably, oppose Trump’s tariffs, and believe that they’ll increase costs.
This comes as Google search trends showed a sharp increase in the search results for “what is a tariff” and “will tariffs raise costs” in the days after Trump's win.
World-renowned Nobel economists tried to warn us about the cost of tariffs back in October. Alas, we at Daily Kos also tried to sound the alarm in the weeks leading up to the election.
Despite growing opposition, Trump still seems determined to repeat the same mistakes in his second term.
Trump is now threatening to impose tariffs on multiple countries—including some of our closest allies—in his second term, ostensibly placing the blame on the fentanyl epidemic as coming from across the borders of Mexico and Canada.
What’s particularly ironic is the realization that many of Trump's supporters, who voted for him based on his promises of economic prosperity, will soon have to reconcile that Trump’s support for tariffs is likely to hurt them directly through rising prices on goods and services. This is the classic case of "the cost of doing business" being passed down to the consumer, something experts and advocates have been warning about for years.
During his first term as president, Trump threatened tariffs against Mexico, then called them off. He eventually implemented tariffs against China, sparking a trade war with one of our biggest importers that economic experts highly criticized.
Retailers, like Walmart’s Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey, have said that they would pass on the increased cost of goods to consumers. Trump has falsely claimed that foreign companies pay tariff increases, but American companies pay and then raise prices for customers so that the increase doesn’t affect their revenue.
“We never want to raise prices,” Rainey said in an interview with CNBC on Nov. 19. “Our model is everyday low prices. But there probably will be cases where prices will go up for consumers.”
“The vast majority of that tariff will probably be passed on to the consumer as a price increase,” said Best Buy CEO Corie Barry, reported Yahoo Finance.
Now, small businesses are bracing themselves for higher supply costs. Consumers are also reportedly preparing for higher fees, and some are even making significant purchases like cars and appliances before prices go up even more.
While the public's growing familiarity with tariffs is a positive development, it’s too little, too late for consumers, particularly MAGA voters, who will be the ones reeling from the consequences of their actions.