Companies Get Ready for Trump’s Tariffs: ‘We’re Set to Raise Prices’

Elon Musk, Donald Trump’s top donor, said that people will face temporary economic “hardship” should Trump take office. Barclays and Morgan Stanley traders are betting on Trump fostering two of the three elements that create stagflation, literally the worst thing that can happen to an economy. The ten-year Treasury Note is up about eighteen percent from its most recent bottom in mid-September, reflecting the market’s expectation of increased borrowing costs and potentially higher inflation alongside Trump’s rise in the polls.

There is absolutely, positively, no question that Donald Trump would bring economic pain to all of America, and a vote for Trump is a vote to raise the costs of goods. This isn’t me saying it, but the chief executive of Columbia Sportswear, Timothy Boyle, in an interview with The Washington Post, when he said “We’re set to raise prices” should Trump win.

Boyle stated the obvious dynamic Trump is unleashing with his proposed tariffs that the conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, called “the biggest tax hike since at least the 1980s,” when the Columbia executive said that “It’s going to be very, very difficult to keep products affordable for Americans.” Philip Daniele, CEO of AutoZone, said on a recent earnings call that “If we get tariffs, we will pass those tariff costs back to the consumer” and Stanley Black & Decker CEO Donald Allan said something similar earlier this year.

This is the reality that Trump’s proposed twenty percent or higher universal tariffs create, one so indisputable that even Elon Musk, King of the colossal idiots, knows it.

Now that it is acknowledged reality even in Republican unreality that Trump’s policies will harm the economy and increase prices for everyday consumers, the question is whether Trump and his cronies would be able to pull the economy out of the tailspin they plan to induce. These people are all bluster and no substance, so the onus is on them to prove for the first time in their lives that they can operate in service of anyone other than their own egos and bank accounts.

As The Wall Street Journal notes, “Higher tariffs would likely be around for years, even if a future president concludes they are a mistake.” They cited a study by the Peterson Institute, which “found that trade flows could be permanently reduced between the U.S. and major trading partners by 1% to 4%, depending on retaliation.”

In other words, Trump’s tariffs have the potential to destroy American trade relationships and push our allies towards China, all while shrinking the American economic pie but still keeping the cost of goods high for consumers.

Another Wall Street Journal report on Trump’s tariffs highlighted how “Analysts at TD Securities estimate that a 10% universal tariff would increase inflation by 0.6 to 0.9 percentage point. Combined with Trump’s plans to restrict immigration, they calculate the tariffs would reduce growth by 1 to 2 percentage points, potentially tipping the economy into a recession. Other economists have arrived at similar forecasts. Standard Chartered has estimated Trump’s tariff plans would raise prices by 1.8% over two years.”

Republicans can lie all they want about what they think their plans will do, but the market has been very clear in how it believes they will unfold: with higher inflation, lower growth, and higher prices for consumers. This reality is so obvious that it even made it through Elon Musk’s thick skull, so anyone voting for Trump on the economy does not get to be surprised if they are paying higher prices at this point next year. This is what has been promised to you by every expert on the planet, including Trump’s own advisors. A vote for Trump is a vote for higher prices, period.