Trump’s tariff push is a race against time, potential voter backlash

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s expansive new tariff regime flips on its head a decades-long global trend of lower trade barriers and is likely, economists say, to raise prices for Americans by thousands of dollars each year while sharply slowing the U.S. economy.

The White House is gambling that other countries will also suffer enough pain that they will open up their economies to more American exports, leading to negotiations that would reduce the tariffs imposed Wednesday. Or, the White House hopes, more companies — both American and foreign — will reverse their moves toward global supply chains and bring more production to the United States to avoid higher import taxes.

But a key question for the Trump administration will be how Americans react to the tariffs. If prices rise noticeably and jobs are lost, voters could turn against the duties and make it harder to keep them in place for the length of time needed to encourage companies to return to the U.S.

The Yale Budget Lab estimates that all the Trump administration’s tariffs would cost the average household $3,800 in higher prices this year. The figure includes the impact of the 10% universal tariff announced Wednesday, plus much higher tariffs on about 60 countries, as well as previous import taxes on steel, aluminum, and cars. Inflation could top 4% this year, from 2.8% currently, while the economy may barely grow, according to estimates by Nationwide Financial.

The average U.S. tariff could rise to nearly 25% when the tariffs are fully implemented April 9, economists estimate, higher than it has been in more than a century and higher than the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariffs that are widely blamed for worsening the Great Recession.

“The president just announced the de facto separation of the U.S. economy from the global economy,” Mary Lovely, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Relations, said. “The stage is set for higher prices and slower growth over the long term.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in an interview on CNBC Thursday, said the policies will help open markets overseas for U.S. exports.

“I expect most countries to start to really examine their trade policy towards the United States of America, and stop picking on us,” he said. ”This is the reordering of fair trade.”

Americans, a day after the announcement, have mixed feelings.

Bob Lehmann, 73, stopped by a Best Buy in Portland, Oregon to buy a keyboard Wednesday. He opposed the tariffs. “They’re going to raise prices and cause people to pay more for daily living,” he said.

Mathew Hall, a 64-year-old paint contractor, said he thought the tariffs were a “great idea” and that potential price increases in the short term were worth it.

“I believe in the long term, it’s going to be good,” he said, adding that he felt the U.S. had been taken advantage of.