El País’ “ideology has been defined by a leaning towards Europeanism, progressivism, and social liberalism.
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In the late 1970s and 1980s, El País had close connections with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE)” [1].
> On Thursday, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said his company's costs keep climbing: "We've continued to see our costs increase each week, which we expect will continue into the third and fourth quarters," he said on an earnings call.
https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-raising-prices-inc...
So in general they end up stuck between a rock and a hard place in a situation like this. The most logical path forward would be to work on supporting domestic supply chains, not subject to tariffs, and helping them to gradually reduce prices through increasing both volume and efficiency.
But the problem that concept runs into is that there's about a coin's flip chance that in 3 years these tariffs will simply be reversed. And any domestic suppliers that were relying on them for a competitive edge will simply be left buried. It thus discourages any sort of meaningful investment in these domestic providers.
This is true of most taxes in a competitive market. Competition was keeping margins low so the money has to come from higher prices or lower salaries, and salaries are sticky so it's usually higher prices. So if the tariffs are instead of some other taxes, it's just a revenue-neutral tax change, not inherently raising prices. But if the tariffs are on top of other taxes then it's a tax increase which gets passed on as higher prices.
The tariffs are primarily hitting the discretionary sector of products, which means people can simply stop buying them. There's also product replacement as an option. For instance the next time somebody's coffee maker breaks they end up buying a French press only to discover that not only is it way cheaper (no filters!), but it never breaks and makes way better coffee anyhow! (Pro Tip: don't use boiling water)
[1] - https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-...
There are lots of nondiscretionary products that take a while to flow through to the point you notice them. The parts to repair the machines that make things for example. Or at a low level, the inserts used in mills to make things out of metal. There are other inserts available, but they aren't as good so they need replacement more often.
The lion's share of imports are going to be alcohol and purchasing produce outside of season.
Do you mean the lion's share of food imports or imports in general? Lots of seafood is processed elsewhere and imported the US. Strangely it appears ground beef is imported to the US even though we are a net exporter of beef.
From American coffee beans? At enough quantity to cover the US market?
Prices are determined at the margin. Domestic producers suddenly have less foreign competition. That lets them raise prices. (Which is what we’re seeing, though not at an accelerated rate to what food prices were doing in ‘24 [1].)
I would add to that statement the context of the market and competitors. Even if retailers east some % of cost increase, this is still a pretty large price increase pressure.
Fair point regarding possible tariff reversal effect on industry investment!
Rock <-USA-> Hard place. At least deflation is not going to be an issue...
Perhaps this is just coming from a finance background. But I’m not a fan of folks quoting numbers from “financial reports” without saying what report they’re citing.
> having a hard time finding the ideological bias you're talking about in the El País article
To be clear, I don’t allege this article has a bias. Just that I’m going to be sceptical of a paper calling something out that aligns with their priors.
What is most surprising to me is the price increase for dairy products. I wonder how much of that increase, if any, is caused by tariffs vs other factors.