Utilities and everyday goods in the US are likely to become expensive in a matter of weeks following President Donald Trump's tariffs rollout, according to a New York Post report.
“Americans will likely have to pay more at the supermarket counter within the coming days while higher prices on everything from sneakers to furniture to cars could be felt in a matter of weeks,” the report said, quoting economists and industry experts.
What will become more expensive
Groceries
Dr. Sung Won Sohn, a distinguished economist and academic at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, told NYT that grocery items that are imported will be more expensive in the short term.
“We import 80% of avocados that we consume in America and those are perishable items, so they will be more expensive immediately,” he said.
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Other staple items that the US doesn't produce domestically such as coffee, tea and bananas will also become more quickly, the NYT report.
Imported vehicles and home appliances
Trump's 25% tariff on all imported vehicles began on Thursday and a 25% levy on auto parts will begin on May 3.
It could take weeks or months for the tariffs on foreign-made cars to be passed along since there is already an existing inventory that has yet to be emptied out, Sohn told NYT.
Washers and dryers like those made by Korean conglomerates Samsung and LG fall into the same “intermediate” bucket as cars, he added.
“They have inventory so as a result prices don’t have to go up right away,” Sohn said, though he added that car dealerships “may not give you discounts that they normally would” as a result of tariffs.
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Another expert, David Warrick, executive vice president of the enterprise division at Overhaul, a company specialising in supply chain visibility and risk management solutions, told NYT that price hikes on cars could come sooner than expected.
“For industries like automotive, electronics, and pharmaceuticals, where global component sourcing is deeply embedded, this will be felt almost immediately,” Warrick said.
“Expect higher input costs, margin pressure, and difficult decisions about what gets passed on to consumers.”
Clothing, furniture, toys and shoes
The NYT report said that clothing, apparel, furniture, toys, and shoes could see higher prices “fairly quickly, like in the next month or two”.
“The more complicated the product is, the longer it’s going to take for these price increases to show up,” Ryan Monarch, assistant professor of economics at Syracuse University, told NYT, adding that products whose import is “closer to the final consumer could see a price hike rather quickly”.
Housing materials will also be more expensive due to tariffs on lumber, steel and aluminum — but it could take up to six months for those price hikes to show up, according to the report.
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Sohn said that he expects capital goods such as earth-moving equipment and heavy machinery to fall into the “third bucket” of goods whose prices won’t increase for at least a year.
“Those items are in stock and I don’t think their prices would be affected right away,” he said.
Meanwhile, the rollout of the tariffs are likely to sow confusion at the ports, which could snarl supply chains and cause shortages not seen since the COVID era, according to one economist.
“A lot of the products at the ports could get stalled so people don’t think about it, these are complicated tariffs to implement,” Michael Szanto, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based economist, told NYT.
Trump's reciprocal tariffs
Trump has announced a comprehensive tariff policy, imposing reciprocal duties on imports from all countries as part of his administration's efforts to address trade imbalances and bolster American industries. The policy includes a 10% baseline tariff on all imports, with significantly higher duties for nations running trade surpluses with the United States.
The highest tariffs have been imposed on Cambodia (49%), Vietnam (46%), and Sri Lanka (44%), reflecting Trump's strategy to target countries with substantial trade surpluses.
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Other Asian economies such as Bangladesh (37%), Thailand (36%), Taiwan (32%), and Indonesia (32%) also face steep levies. China, a key target of Trump’s trade policies, will be subjected to a 34% tariff, while the European Union will see a 20% duty on its exports to the US.
Key American allies, including Japan (24%), South Korea (25%), and India (26%), have not been exempted, indicating the broad scope of the tariffs.
Additionally, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Singapore, Chile, Australia, and Turkey will each face a 10% duty. Israel (17%), the Philippines (17%), and South Africa (30%) are also among the affected countries.
Trump has also confirmed a 25% tariff on automobile imports, set to take effect on April 3. Speaking at the White House on Wednesday, the president justified the aggressive tariff measures, claiming they were necessary to correct longstanding economic imbalances. "Our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, plundered by other nations," Trump stated.
(With inputs from agencies)
