Tarifflation Is Not Just MIA: Tariffs Are Reducing Prices.
The Department of Commerce released the latest edition of the personal consumption expenditure price index on Friday. It showed that inflation remains stubbornly above the Fed’s two percent target but not because of tariffs. For the second month in a row, the prices of durable goods—those most likely to be influenced by tariffs—fell.
Importantly, this decline is not coming from a lack of demand for durable goods. Things are not falling in price because people aren’t buying them. Real consumer spending—that is, after adjusting for inflation—on durable goods rose by 0.9 percent. People are buying more durable goods at cheaper prices.
This is absolutely devastating to the idea that tariffs are a tax on consumers. Even more devastating to that claim, however, is the evidence from a tariff tracker of prices. The tariff tracker, which is run out of the Pricing Lab at Harvard Business School, shows that since Liberation Day when tariffs were announced, the prices of imported goods in tariff-affected categories are up by less (just 1.13 percent) than domestically produced goods in unaffected categories (up by 1.25 percent). In other words, the stuff directly subject to tariffs has risen by less than the prices of stuff not even indirectly subject to tariffs. If we annualize the gains, tariffed imports are up 2.41 percent and non-tariff affected domestic goods are up 2.76 percent.
