Politics Magazine

Trump's Tariffs And Deportations Will Make Grocery Prices Go Way Up

Posted on the 28 January 2025 by Jobsanger
Trump's Tariffs And Deportations Will Make Grocery Prices Go Way Up
During the campaign, Trump made three big promises to voters. He pledged to raise tariffs on imports from other countries, deport undocumented immigrants, and reduce grocery prices. 

It looks like he is going to follow through on the first two (tariffs and deportations). That means he will not be able to reduce grocery prices. On the contrary, they will go way up!

Tariffs will obviously make prices go up. While Trump claims the foreign countries will pay the tariff, that is simply not true. The importer of the goods pays the tariff - and then raises the price to the consumer on those goods to recoup the loss.

The United States imports about 40% to 60% of fruits and vegetables (and other foodstuffs like meat are imported). The price of those imports will go up by the amount of the tariff imposed. His projected tariff on Mexico is 25%, and it's expected to be the same for many other countries. That would raise the price of imports from Mexico (where we get a lot of our fruits and vegetables) by a whopping 25%!

And it won't be any better for grocery products produced in the United States. A huge portion of the workers on farms are undocumented immigrants (see the chart above) - doing hard labor jobs that Americans don't want. If they are deported, it will be very hard to replace them. Some crops will not be harvested and those that are will cost a lot more. The same is true of ranches and meatpackers.

Trump has made competing promises, which means some will not be kept. The American consumer will pay the price for it.


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