Citing calculations by Democrats on Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, the Associated Press reported that tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump since returning to the White House earlier this year have cost the average American family approximately $1,200.
Based on Treasury Department data on tariff revenue and Goldman Sachs’ estimates of who ultimately bears the burden, the Democrats’ report, released Thursday, claimed that from February to November, American consumers paid approximately $159 billion, or $1,198 per family.
The Problem of Rising Prices
“This report shows that (Trump’s) tariffs have done nothing but raise prices for families,” the AP quoted Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Economic Committee, as saying. “At a time when both parties should be working together to lower costs, the president’s tax on American families is only making things more expensive.”
During his second term, Trump has reversed decades of U.S. policy that supported free trade. He has imposed double-digit tariffs on nearly every country. According to the Yale University Budget Lab, the average U.S. tariff increased from 2.4% to 16.8% earlier this year, the highest level since 1935, the report said.
What Does Trump Claim?
Trump consistently insists that these tariffs will protect domestic industries from unfair foreign competition, attract factories to the United States, and generate revenue for the Treasury.
The news portal quoted White House spokesperson Kush Desai as saying, “President Trump’s tariffs have actually secured trillions of dollars in investment for manufacturing and hiring in America, as well as historic trade deals that finally provide a level playing field for American workers and industries.”
“Democrats complained for decades about unfair trade deals that were undermining the American working class, and now they’re complaining about the one president who actually did something about it.”
It’s worth noting that importers typically pay the tariffs and, in most cases, pass on the increased costs to their customers.
Democrats performed well in last month’s elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and other areas, largely because voters blamed Trump and the Republicans for rising inflation. This mirrors how voters blamed Trump’s predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, for the same issue just a year earlier.
Last week, Kimberly Clausing, an economist at the UCLA School of Law and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told a House subcommittee that Trump’s tariffs “represent the largest tax increase on American consumers in a generation, lowering the standard of living for all Americans.”
Clausing, who served as a Treasury Department tax official in the Biden administration, calculated that Trump’s import taxes “are equivalent to a tax increase of approximately $1,700 per year for the average family.”
(With agency inputs)