WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s promised “golden age” of high tariffs has spiked inflation to levels higher than during his predecessor Joe Biden’s final year in office, increasing prices on everything from electricity to coffee.
In the four months since he announced his so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs on goods from the rest of the world, inflation on groceries is running at 3.1% on an annualized basis, according to a HuffPost analysis of federal government statistics. In Biden’s final year, grocery prices increased 1.8%.
The inflation rate for electricity over the past four months is running at 15.7% – more than four times what it was in Biden’s final year.
The overall inflation rate is now also higher than it was in Biden’s last 12 months in office: 3.1% on an annualized basis, compared to 2.8%.
“This is what economists warned would happen,” said University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers. “Trump promised these prices would fall. While one could quibble about the rate at which these prices are rising, there’s no question that he hasn’t delivered.”
