Trump basically admits his tariffs are raising grocery prices

The Trump administration is preparing to exempt certain food items from President Donald Trump's idiotic and possibly illegal tariffs, The New York Times reported on Thursday, with administration officials telling the Times that the exemptions are an effort to lower grocery prices.

Exempting certain items from Trump's moronic tariffs in an effort to lower costs for American consumers is an admission that tariffs do, in fact, raise prices—as economists, Democrats, and really anyone with a brain has been saying for months.

“The Trump Administration is preparing tariff rollbacks that essentially concede that so many of their tariffs are a tax on consumers raising their basic, everyday prices—tariffs that never made sense or had anything to do with manufacturing or national security,” Gene Sperling, who served as a member of former President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, wrote in a post on X.

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The New York Times' report came one day after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that the administration was also contemplating exempting other imports from tariffs, including coffee and fruit.

“You’re going to see substantial tariff announcements over the next couple of days in terms of things we don’t grow here, coffee being one of them," Bessent said. "That will bring the prices down very quickly.”

That, too, was an admission that Trump's tariffs are increasing prices for American consumers, who were duped by Trump into believing that a vote for him would lower their cost of living.

Polling shows Americans are pissed about the economy and are souring on Trump, as costs have only continued to rise since he took office, rather than fall as he had promised. 

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Trump’s average approval rating is a dismal 40%, according to FiftyPlusOne. And his approval rating on the economy is even lower, with an Associated Press/NORC poll released on Tuesday finding that just 33% of Americans approve his handling of the economy.

Grocery prices are up nearly 3% from a year ago—not down, as Trump has wrongly said multiple times in recent days.

Trump has even wrongly dismissed Americans who are concerned about the cost of living, saying that voters who believe prices are up are being conned by Democrats and the media.

“More than anything else it’s a con job by the Democrats,” Trump told Fox News' Laura Ingraham on Tuesday. “They put out something ‘say today costs are up.’ They feed it to the anchors of ABC, CBS and NBC and a lot of others—CNN etc.”

At the end of the day, Trump's tariffs have raised prices, tanked the job market—and if not addressed soon could possibly take the entire economy down.

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