I’m a free trader, but I also understand that for competitiveness and strategic reasons, President Trump’s trade tariffs are used as leverage to help make trade freer and fairer. He’s a master negotiator, who has used the tariff threat to force other nations to play by the rules and level the playing field. But some specific tariffs don’t make sense, and instead of saving jobs, they raise prices for consumers – especially when there is no viable domestic producer here at home. In these cases, the "affordability" issue – real and in some cases imagined - is made worse for families. Many grocery items have risen by 25 to 30% in recent years, and the price of canned goods – from peas to peaches – has risen 40 percent during the same period.If these prices keep rising, voters will get angrier and Republicans will feel the wrath of the voters in November. Which brings us back to tariffs.
Canned goods are more expensive today in no small part because of the tariff on imported "tinplate steel" for metal cans of fruits and veggies and those costs get passed on to prices paid at the grocery check-out line. Short-sighted trade policy is largely to blame.WHITE HOUSE ‘LASER FOCUSED’ ON AFFORDABILITY AS TRUMP SOFTENS TARIFF STRATEGYU.S.steel manufacturers have been scaling back tinplate production in recent years, which has forced U.S.
can makers to source more tinplate from abroad.The can makers import approximately 70 percent of the tinplate steel they use, up from 42 percent eight years earlier. Tinplate steel was subject to President Trump’s 25 percent tariff in 2018.
And since last June, the tariff has risen to 50 percent.Those tariffs have driven up costs for the domestic canned food industry.
And those costs ultimately get passed along to consumers, in the form of higher food prices.You may not think these cost increases are a big deal, but the reality is roughly one-third of the wholesale price of canned fruits and vegetables is co...