Corporate media repeatedly predicted that President Donald Trump’s tariffs would lead to price hikes —only for those forecasts to be repeatedly proven wrong.
Trump imposed steep reciprocal tariffs on numerous countries on April 2 before announcing a 90-day pause that lowered most of them to a 10% baseline. Despite the 10% duties and persistent media warnings, inflation has not surged.
For instance, ABC News on March 26 cited “experts” to report that fresh tariffs “would ratchet up the global trade war, raising prices for an array of consumer goods and risking an economic slowdown.” While a May 13 CNBC piece acknowledged that inflation had “eased” in April despite the tariffs, it warned prices could rise as the duties took hold.
However, inflation also rose less than expected in May, falling to a four-year low.
Moreover, The Guardian, while not a corporate media outlet, ran an April 22 opinion piece asserting that tariffs would inevitably increase prices.
“[T]here is no way tariffs of this magnitude can be absorbed,” the authors wrote. “Producers and consumers must take a hit, and that means rising prices.”
NewsNation host Chris Cuomo similarly claimed on “The Chris Cuomo Project” in February that tariffs were bound to influence inflation.
“[T]he idea that it’s going to boost our economy — never happens, okay? The idea that you can tariff your way and not have an income tax anymore — not going to happen,” Cuomo said. “The idea that you’re going to apply a tariff and it doesn’t affect inflation — not true.”
In a June 20 piece, CNN acknowledged that tariff inflation warnings have yet to prove accurate.
“Predictions from mainstream economists were dire after President Donald Trump launched his tariff campaign just a couple weeks after he began his second term in office: Prices would rise — sharply — they said, reigniting an inflation crisis that tens of millions of Americans had elected him to solve,” the piece states. “But that massive, tariff-induced inflation spike hasn’t materialized. Not even close.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argued on “Pod Force One” June 18 that those predicting doom due to Trump’s duties have “tariff derangement syndrome.”
“I think that a lot of Democrats are in favor of tariffs, but now that President Trump is leading the charge, they can’t be,” Bessent said. “And so they call them the Trump tariffs. And all these predictions have just been baseless and a flop — and nobody wants to admit it.”
He noted that the consumer price index (CPI) — a broad measure of the prices of everyday goods — only rose by a seasonally adjusted 0.1% in May, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published on June 11. He added that the Producer Price Index rose by the same rate in May, according to the BLS.
Furthermore, the U.S. economy added 147,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in June, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data published on Thursday. The total exceeded economists’ projections that the U.S. economy added 106,000 jobs in June.
ABC News, CNBC and Cuomo did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
The Guardian declined to comment to the DCNF.
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