Trump New Beginning. Morning in America

Have prices gotten higher since the tariffs? Not really. Funny that this is coming from CNN - though they do try to spin it by saying that "stores are still running through their inventory" and "the US economy is complex" and it's hard to predict when prices might rise. LOL

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/20/business/tariff-price-increases-inflation-explained

CNN —

Predictions from mainstream economists were dire after President Donald Trump launched his tariff campaign just a couple weeks after he began his second term in office: Prices would rise — sharply — they said, reigniting an inflation crisis that tens of millions of Americans had elected him to solve.

But that massive, tariff-induced inflation spike hasn’t materialized. Not even close.

Not yet, anyway.

Consumer prices rose just 2.4%, annually, last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was less than economists had expected, and only slightly higher than the 2.3% rate in April, which was the US economy’s lowest inflation since February 2021. According to the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index most closely followed by the Federal Reserve, core inflation — which strips out volatile items like food and gas prices — fell to 2.5% in April. That was the lowest reading since March 2021.

That’s a far cry from what economists and consumers have predicted. Month after month, inflation has fallen short of Wall Street’s expectations, as American businesses said they would be forced to hike prices as a result of historically high tariffs.

America’s effective tariff rate is now 14.1%, according to Fitch Ratings, up from 2.3% last year. That means Trump raised taxes on imported goods by nearly 12 percentage points in 2025. Economists expected substantial inflation increases as a result.

Goldman Sachs analysts last month said core goods inflation could hit 6.3% this year and consumer prices would surge 3.7% by early 2026. JPMorgan economists said core inflation would nearly double by the end of this year. And American consumers in May expected prices to rise an alarming 6.6% this year, according to sentiment surveys from the University of Michigan. That prediction fell in June, but consumers still expect inflation to hit 5.1% in 2025.

Not quite. Their predictions may yet come true — and economists are largely cleaving to their bets. America’s economy is enormous and complex, and predicting when prices will rise and fall can be an extremely tricky business — particularly when factoring in the on-again, off-again nature of Trump’s tariff regime.

Still, tariffs through mid-June haven’t caused inflation to spike. Love tariffs or hate them, there’s no denying inflation is lower now than when Trump took office.

Very little has gotten more expensive

Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday said just a few items are growing in price as a result of tariffs, including electronics that come from China. He said PCs and A/V equipment have become more expensive because of Trump’s trade war.

But the price increases aren’t widespread yet, Powell noted, because stores are still working through the inventory that came in to their warehouses before Trump put tariffs in place.

“Goods being sold at retailers today may have been imported several months ago, before tariffs were imposed,” Powell said.