When Americans hurt by the rising cost of living believed Donald Trump, they made a big mistake

Welcome Back Inflation! Soon You’ll Be Bigger Than Ever!

Mitchell Zimmerman

In 2024 Donald Trump promised: “a vote for Trump means your groceries will be cheaper.” “Prices will come down,” he vowed, “and they’ll come down fast, with everything.” “When I win,” he pledged, “I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One.”

Trump never said how he would accomplish this wonder because in fact he had no idea. And didn’t care.

Surprise! Surprise! Prices did not come down “fast,” “immediately,” “starting on Day One” or at all. They’re moving in the other direction.

In the nine months since Trump took office, here’s what’s happened to prices:

• Electricity + 7%
• Natural gas + 6%
• Gasoline + 6%
• Beef (ground chuck) + 13%
• Oranges + 15%
• Bananas + 9%

In fairness, chicken prices are the same, eggs are down and bread is 2% cheaper. If all you eat are egg salad sandwiches, you’ll do fine under Trump. (But hold the mayo – the mayonnaise producer price index is up 4% over the year).

Trump’s Labor Department admits his immigration policies have caused “acute labor shortages” posing “immediate dangers to the American food supply” — and “higher prices”

Inflation is surging – and soon will get much worse. Trump’s mass deportation crusade and his tariff mania are destined to sharply increase the cost of living.

Deporting millions of law-abiding, hard-working undocumented immigrants is economic lunacy and can only drive up prices.

Undocumented immigrants are half of the agricultural workforce. In a recent Federal Register filing, Trump’s Labor Department admits that his immigration policies have brought on “acute labor shortages” that pose “immediate dangers to the American food supply.” There is now a “risk of supply shock-induced food shortages” leading to “higher prices” for food.

In a back-handed compliment to undocumented immigrants, the Labor Department acknowledges that “agricultural work requires a distinct set of skills and is among the most physically demanding and hazardous occupations in the U.S. labor market.” “Despite rising wages, such jobs are still not viewed as viable alternatives for many [U.S.-born] workers.”

A California grower explains what a labor shortage looks like: “If 70% of your workforce doesn’t show up, 70% of your crop doesn’t get picked and can go bad in one day. Most Americans don’t want to do this work.” The outcome: “price hikes for consumers.”

Not just food prices. Undocumented immigrants are a major part of the workforce in construction, meat-packing, food processing, hospitality, and transportation. Eliminating immigrant labor means more shortages and higher prices.

Trump's lawyers decided they couldn't lie
 to the Supreme Court

Trump’s “beautiful tariffs” make things still worse. A tariff is a sales tax on the cost of everything purchased from overseas – shoes made in Vietnam, shirts and pants from Bangladesh, smartphones and toys from China, aluminum and lumber from Canada, auto parts from Mexico, coffee from Brazil, bananas from Guatemala.

Tariffs will cost an average American household $2,300 in 2025

The businesses that buy these goods pay the tariff and add the tax to their price. If it is Canadian lumber that bears a 25% tariff, the 25% – as the National Association of Home Builders has pointed out – is a cost for builders and makes houses less affordable. If it is tomatoes from Mexico with a 17% tariff, Safeway will charge you more.

“Overall, Americans now face an average tariff rate of 17.4% . . . an increase estimated to cost households an extra $2,300 in 2025,” reports CNBC.

What’s the point? Trump believes increasing the cost of imports will make U.S. manufactures cheaper by comparison. But under a tariff economy everything actually becomes more expensive, not less.

The cost of American-made cars will go up under Trump’s tariffs because these cars are built with tariff-burdened imported steel and aluminum and include made-abroad parts.

In theory, clothing manufacture could be returned to the U.S.A. from poor countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Ethiopia, where workers earn pennies an hour. But at U.S. minimum wages, apparel would become unaffordable – $126 to $207 for a woman’s shirt and $234 to $324 for a pair of jeans, Marketplace calculates.

Many tariffs are simply pointless. The U.S. doesn’t have the right climate for growing coffee, so making coffee 20% more expensive will not create U.S. coffee plantations and jobs.

Trump did not campaign on the promise, “I will raise prices, but it will all be for the best.” For Trump, the “art of the deal” was bait and switch: promise lower prices, deliver higher prices. American consumers will remain Trump’s victims unless we resist his tariff lunacy and immigration brutality.

Mitchell Zimmerman is an attorney, longtime social activist, and author of the anti-racism thriller Mississippi Reckoning. He's also a longtime contributor to Progressive Charlestown. His writing can also be found on his Substack, Reasoning Together with Mitchell Zimmerman.

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