Polls have consistently shown that voters place more trust in former President Donald Trump when it comes to bringing down inflation, which has dropped significantly over the last year and now sits at 3.2 percent.
However, New York Magazine's Erick Levitz argues that this trust in Trump may be misplaced, as the former president's plans are far more likely to send inflation soaring again then bring it down further.
"That [Trump] agenda includes imposing a 10 percent tariff on all foreign-made goods, enacting large deficit-financed tax cuts, and slashing America’s foreign-born labor force through mass deportations and immigration restriction," Levitz writes. "Taken together, this constitutes a recipe for a drastic increase in U.S. consumer prices."
Inflation in the United States has come down as the federal reserve enacted a series of stiff rate increases intended to slow down economic activity.
As Levitz sees it, Trump's plans would risk undoing all of that work in one fell swoop.
"When you impose high tariffs on all goods from every exporter, your nation’s consumers will inevitably suffer higher prices," he writes. "Americans consume many foreign-made specialty products that are currently much cheaper than any domestic alternative. Since U.S. buyers have nowhere else to go, specialty exporters subject to tariffs feel little need to lower prices in order to offset the value of the duties."
