Due to today’s official report on U.S. consumer inflation, I can’t help but wonder: If these latest findings for the …Continue reading →
Due to today’s official report on U.S. consumer inflation, I can’t help but wonder: If these latest findings for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) don’t at least start to prompt tariff haters to question whether the Trump 2.0 duties will ignite a ruinous bout of price increases, what will?
To be sure, the new results do show some signs of tariffs-produced inflation. But the most appropriate comparisons with pre-Trump 2.0 tariff CPI figures simply don’t show anything remotely resembling a conflagration. And in some cases, prices for tariff-heavy industries have actually been falling so far this fall. Moreover, although the president has cut some duties since September, nearly all of these reductions were made for agricultural commodities – not the product sectors listed below.
Because of the government shutdown, the new CPI release contains no numbers for October – therefore, the monthly price changes for November can’t be presented. But the year-on-year data are available, and represent a good starting point for making clear how favorable the November statistics were.
During that month, annual headline inflation of 2.71 percent was the weakest increase since June’s 2.67 percent. The core results strip out food and energy costs because they’re supposedly volatile for reasons having little to do with the economy’s underlying vulnerability to inflation. And they made clear even more progress – at 2.62 percent, they were the best such number since way back in March, 2021, just before forty year worst Bidenflation began (1.68 percent).
The 30,000-foot post-Liberation Day results look good as well. From April (when those tariffs were first imposed) through November of this year, headline CPI was up by 1.47 percent. For the same period in pre-tariff-y 2024, it rose by 1.10 percent. In other words, hardly a disastrous difference.
Further, for core inflation, it increased by 1.58 percent between April and November, 2024. That’s more than the advance of 1.42 percent between those two months this year.
Looking at specific categories of heavily tariffed goods reveals little cause for inflation-related alarm, either. And as has been the case throughout the year, the results vary widely – because different products are…different, and their prices levels and changes reflect both tariff rates and many other factors.
The “Commodities less food, energy, and used vehicles” grouping is a fine broad proxy for tariffed products. Between April and November, 2024, prices of these goods dipped by 0.18 percent. Since Liberation Day this year, they’re up by 0.93 percent. That doesn’t exactly scream “unaffordability.” But since September, they’re down fractionally in absolute terms.
Prices for apparel were off by -0.21 percent from April through November, 2024, and up 0.58 percent during the same months this year. That’s clearly no inflation disaster, either. But since September, they’ve edged down by 0.07 percent.
There’s a bigger 2024-2025 difference for furniture and bedding. Consumer prices for the first period decreased by 1.02 percent during the 2024 stretch, and increased by 1.75 percent during the same 2025 months. But furniture and bedding have also become fractionally lower since September.
Much the same story is told by appliances prices trends. From April through September, 2024 they retreated by -0.16 percent, while advancing by 2.10 percent since Liberation Day this year. But the appliance CPI has sagged by 0.12 percent since August.
Ditto more or less for tools, hardware and outdoor equipment. Their prices slipped by 0.17 percent between April and November, 2024 and jumped by 2.75 percent during the same 2025 stretch, but are down by 0.33 percent since August.
There was strong sporting goods deflation during the months in question in last year (2.93 percent) and 2.28 percent inflation between April and November this year. But since August, , 2025, a deflationary trend has returned (0.87 percent).
President Trump was roundly criticized for his remarks in April belittling the notion that his tariffs would ignite raging inflation for Christmas toys. And since Liberation Day, toy prices have climbed by 1.35 percent. But they’ve plunged by fully 1.79 percent since June.
New vehicles prices have risen modestly this April-November (by 0.21 percent) after declining by 0.11 percent during the same pre-tariff months in 2024.
Automotive parts and equipment have gone up more than twice as fast from this April through November (2.40 percent) than from last April through November (1.05 percent). But they, too, are down significantly since September – by 1.04 percent.
No one knows for sure whether the above autumn deflationary developments will continue. But if they do, that would be entirely entirely consistent with the maxim that “the best cure for high prices is high prices.” More broadly, they’re the latest in a lengthening string of signs refuting predictions that importers will easily pass tariff-swollen costs onto their customers.
