Nobody can escape the effects of Donald Trump’s announced tariffs, least of all the average Americans. This will result in a chain of price increases for all products they use in their daily lives because they will be the ones to pay for the additional costs charged by importers. Renowned CNN journalist Richard Quest went into a store in New York and demonstrated, by randomly picking products from the shelves, how dependent the USA is on imports and how much extra money Americans will have to pay every time they go shopping.
“It’s easy to think about tariffs for big things, like cars, dishwashers and so on. But the truth is, most of us will feel the tariffs in places like this, Heavenly Deli, where you buy your food and drinks every day. Just look. Tariffs, tariffs, tariffs! A bottle of San Pellegrino. It comes from Italy, from the EU. I know it costs about five dollars here. But then you add the 20% tariff for the EU. So we’re talking about approximately one dollar or so.
Who will pay the dollar? The importer will pass it on to the distributor, wholesaler, the lady at the cash register, who will then pass it on to me. Then you start looking at other things.
Sweets from Australia. Now, there are elections in Australia at the moment. Anthony Albanese is facing the public. How will he explain how these $7.99 sweets are suddenly 10% more expensive? What effect will it have on sales?
You need to buy a new charger. You can never have enough chargers. Of course, Heavenly Deli also has chargers. The charger and the cable will cost around $20, but they come from China. And there’s a 34% tariff for China, meaning 34% of $20. Do the math yourselves. Suddenly, this product becomes more expensive.
And then you have smaller items, like chicken flavored ramen from Malaysia, $2.99. It’s described as a spicy madness. How much craziness will there be when the 24% tariff is applied and the price of $2.99 increases? However you look at it, everything will become more expensive and it’s just a matter of who will bear the costs,” explained CNN journalist Richard Quest.
The CNN journalist’s analysis was made before Donald Trump announced that the tariffs for China will increase from 34% to 104%.