One true thing he said: “I Couldn’t Care Less.”
His actual plan was to ignore grocery prices and launch a
tariff war he knew would inflate the price of the all the goods we buy from
abroad. Too bad he didn’t tell us his real plan.
Call it the Donald Double Whammy.
Grocery price are not “coming down fast,”
as Trump repeatedly promised. And Trump’s tariffs will all too soon boost the
price of everything we buy that’s imported – from cars to gasoline to clothing
to shoes to computers, cellphones, toys and, yes, groceries, too. America imports one-fifth
of our food from abroad, and tariffs will make fruits and vegetables
more costly. You’ll see that part of Trumpflation very
soon.
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| Trump skipped the Dover Air Force base return of the bodies of four soldiers killed in an accident in Lithuania to attend a Saudia Arabian-sponsored golf tournament at his Florida golf club. Priorities. |
First, over and over Trump pledged to fix inflation. The
economy was issue
number one for most voters, and Trump attributed
his victory to Americans’ anger over food prices. He said “inflation
will vanish completely,” and vowed “prices
will come down, and they’ll come down fast, with everything.”
“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on
Day One.” Right
up to election day, Trump assured us: “a vote for Trump means your
groceries will be cheaper.”
Lies About Inflation and Lies About Tariffs
Trump never revealed his plan for dealing with inflation
because he had no plan. Not long after the election he admitted prices
were not going to come down. “It's hard to bring things down once they're
up,” he
acknowledged a few weeks later. “Very hard.”
Are we supposed to believe he only realized after the
election that it would be “very hard” to reduce prices?
It had always been quite a promise, because the only
historically proven way to actually reduce prices is an
economic depression. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, for example,
prices went down 10% in 1932 alone. But hurrahs were limited since one in four
workers was unemployed that year.
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| This is what Trump posted on Truth Social about tariff protests |
Trump claimed that
tariffs would bring on a new golden age for America, eliminating federal budget
deficits, replacing the income tax, easily paying for child care for all –
and most important, costing Americans nothing.
Trump promised that his tariffs would be paid
by other countries, not by American consumers: “It’s not going to be a cost
to you, it’s going to be a cost to another country.” “I am going to put tariffs
on other countries’ [goods] coming into our country and that has nothing to do
with taxes to us.”
Trump admits he lied — but asks you to love the pain of higher prices
Trump knew these claims were false. As the
right-leaning Tax Foundation explained, a tariff is simply “a tax on people
who buy things from foreign businesses.” The conservative Cato
Institute reports “overwhelming evidence that Americans bore the
brunt” of Trump’s first-term tariffs and will do so again. The plummeting stock
market shows that investors well very understand that Trump tariffs will not be
a magic, cost-free gift to the American economy.
And now, finally, Trump admits it himself. When confronted
with the fact that his 25% tariff on autos and auto parts will cause prices to
surge, Trump no longer disputes that tariff costs will rest on the backs of
American consumers. Instead, he cheers!
“I couldn’t care less,” says Trump. “I hope they raise their prices, because if they do, people are going to buy American-made cars.”
Trump understands perfectly well, as he always has, that
tariffs are not “a cost to another country.” He no longer says “It’s not going
to be a cost to you.” Now he says Americans will feel “some
pain,” but that it’s a good thing. (If, by the way, Trump decides to add
pharmaceuticals to his tariffs, as he has threatened, there may literally be
more pain for many Americans, for his tariffs are likely to cause shortages
of pain-killers.)
Trump did not tell inflation-afflicted voters before
November that a vote for Trump was a vote for pain. Wouldn’t it have been nice
to be able to decide, before you voted, whether you wanted to pay more for
everything you buy from overseas?
How much pain? We don’t yet know the full scope. But under
the tariffs Trump announced on “Liberation Day,” the tariff tax on all imported
products will be ten
times what it had been. What is impacted? Nearly everything. In
addition to cars and car parts, lumber for building homes: 30% comes from
Canada. Shoes: 99% are imported. Apparel: 98%.
Can Trump’s tariffs increase manufacturing in the United States by forcing us to buy American-made cars? Economists are dubious. To begin, there aren’t any 100% “American-made cars.” “Almost 60 percent of the parts used in vehicles that are assembled in the country” are imported.
Auto manufacturers created a system based on free trade
among the U.S., Mexico and Canada, in which parts made in any of the three
countries may freely move among the others. Then cars assembled in one country
may be sold into another.
Half of the parts in a “made-in-the-USA” Cadillac are
manufactured in Mexico. Thirty percent of the parts in an Acura assembled in
Mexico come from the U.S. or Canada.
Trump
claims the trade agreement underlying this system is “unfair” and that
Mexico and Canada “took advantage of the United States.” “Who would
ever sign a thing like this?” Trump recently asked.
Donald Trump, actually. The U.S. Mexico Canada
Agreement (USMCA) was negotiated and signed by Trump on November 30, 2018.
Then, he hailed
USMCA as “a colossal victory for our farmers, ranchers, energy
workers, factory workers and American workers in all 50 states.”
“An especially big win for American auto workers,” Trump
bragged. “The USMCA is the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade
agreement we have ever signed into law.”
Back then it was “incredible,” “the best agreement we’ve
ever made.” Now it’s a target for Trump’s unhinged tariff mania. What will come
of tariffs on everything we buy from abroad? Unemployment, as cars and other
goods become more expensive and demand plummets. More unemployment, as other
countries retaliate with tariffs that bar American exports. And more inflation,
with the China,
Canada and Mexico tariffs alone estimated to cost the typical
household $1,600 to $2,000 a year – an estimate made before the additional
tariffs that Trump announced on April 2nd.
Trump has moved on from his false promises. And American families will be left to bear the cost of his actual plan to unleash inflation and shatter world trade.
Subscribe to Reasoning Together with Mitchell Zimmerman. Engaging, evidence-based arguments on democracy, racism and justice. From a 1960s civil rights veteran, an opponent of two lies-based wars, and a long time social justice attorney and author. Since 1964.
