As temperatures soared on a sweltering July day in New York City, shoppers at Queens’s largest mall said they were feeling the heat – of rising prices.
“T-shirts, basic t-shirts, underwear, the basic necessities – the prices are going up,” said Clarence Johnson, 48, who was visiting the Macy’s at the Queen Center mall to pick up shirts he ordered online.
As Donald Trump presses on with his trade wars, retailers have been passing price increases onto customers. Department stores – which rely on a variety of imported goods and materials, from shoes to t-shirts – have particularly been scrambling to deal with the flux in prices.
Prices going up is literally the intention of tariffs. Increasing prices on imported goods is the fantasy of how tariffs encourage the purchase of domestic goods.
Reality:
Prices go up for imported goods driving down demand for all goods both domestic and imported.
Retaliatory tariffs, increased cost of resources, and most destructively changes to purchasing behaviors drive down exports and kill domestic production further. These are long term effects as well. As competitive countries fill the niche left from the fucking idiot country who decided to shit on their own market.