Trump vowed to reduce prices, but his policies have fueled US inflation

Trump vowed to reduce prices, but his policies have fueled US inflation Steven Greenhouse in New York ‘Even though economists warned that tariffs would be inflationary, Trump has enthusiastically embraced them’

Donald Trump successfully campaigned for his second term two years ago promising to reduce prices on day one , but ever since he returned to the White House, he has done little to fight inflation or reduce prices. Instead, some of his most important policy decisions – most notably his war against Iran and his tariff wars – have increased inflation instead of reducing it. This helps explain why more than one-in-five Americans who voted for Trump now disapprove of the job he’s doing.

Even though economists warned that tariffs would be inflationary, Trump has enthusiastically embraced them during his second term. Indeed, the “ liberation day ” tariffs he imposed soon after returning to office increased the price of hundreds of goods, including citrus fruits , steel, bananas, beef and auto parts. When the supreme court overturned those tariffs as illegal, Trump immediately imposed new 10% across-the-board tariffs that again helped push up prices (a lower court found those tariffs unlawful, too ). Time and again, Trump has slapped on new tariffs even though they inherently push up prices because tariffs are a tax on imported goods. Little wonder that a Fox News poll this month found that 77% of Americans disapprove of how Trump has handled tariffs.

Candidate Trump pledged to slash “energy and electricity prices by half” , to get “gasoline below $2 a gallon” , and to bring down “airfares and housing costs”. He has failed to do any of those things. Gas now averages $4.28 a gallon nationally, according to AAA . Yale Budget Lab says Trump’s tariffs will cost the average household $1,100 this year, while Moody’s Analytics says the war with Iran has already cost US households around $2,000 from higher energy, fuel and transportation costs and from higher interest rates.

Worsening Americans’ affordability problems, prices have been rising faster than workers’ wages in recent months. As a result, Americans have seen no real wage growth on average since Trump returned to office – both average hourly pay and prices have risen by 5.4% since January 2025.

Matthew Middleton, a White House spokesman, defended Trump’s record on inflation and critiqued Joe Biden’s, saying: “President Trump has implemented an aggressive, pro-growth economic agenda that has blunted Biden’s historic 40-year high inflation crisis, driven economic growth, increased wages and created private-sector jobs in areas that had been hollowed out and shipped overseas.”