Tariff Talk Making Consumers Nervous

Ellen C. Wells

The National Retail Federation released a statement in mid-February to address the Trump administration’s February 13 memorandum to impose reciprocal tariffs on all trading partners.

This from NRF’s Executive Vice President of Government Relations David French: “While we support the president’s efforts to reduce trade barriers and imbalances, this scale of undertaking is massive and will be extremely disruptive to our supply chains. It will likely result in higher prices for hardworking American families and will erode household spending power. We encourage the president to seek coordination and collaboration with our trading partners and bring stability to our supply chains and family budgets.

“The University of Michigan monthly consumer sentiment index continues to decline, suggesting consumers are alarmed about trade war uncertainty.”

Several readers wrote to me in response to a recent buZZ! newsletter item about tariffs. I’m not going to include all of it here, but as an example one grower-retailer said the price increases on the Canadian side are already taking effect, and they can’t raise prices for consumers since all their labels and pots are already printed with this year’s pricing. Ordering product from elsewhere isn’t an option because their Canadian provider has stuff that’s just so good. GP