New inflation numbers are at odds with Donald Trump’s promise to lower prices | Inflation

As tens of millions of Americans prepared to watch the Super Bowl this weekend, Donald Trump sat for the customary pre-game presidential interview.

Trump was elected after pledging to bring down prices fast as much of the country grappled with the cost of living after years of heightened inflation. So when the Fox News anchor asked would families start to feel the impact, the president changed the subject.

“I think we’re going to become a rich – and look, we’re not that rich right now,” he replied, before turning to the US national debt, and its trade deficits with other nations.

Who can blame him? Data released on Wednesday underlined the challenge of ending inflation, as Trump promised on the campaign trail: it rose, rather than fell, as he returned to the White House last month.

His reluctance to comment on the issue is, perhaps, a tacit admission of the limits to any president’s power. Trump knows how much control he has over inflation. Behind the prices Americans encounter while filling up their cars or buying groceries, lies an extraordinarily complex array of factors.

Bold rhetoric does not necessarily change reality. Campaign pledges are easier to deliver than breakthroughs in government, as Trump learned during his first administration.

There is, of course, another risk looming on the horizon. While bringing down inflation is hard, as Trump has noted, economists have warned his economic strategy threatens to make matters worse.

Imposing steep tariffs on goods from overseas could raise “trillions” of dollars, according to the president, and force countries to bend to his will. But the side-effect, according to US businesses bracing for higher duties, is higher prices for consumers across the country.

Corporate America is starting to sound the alarm, with the CEO of Ford Motor warning that slated tariffs on Canada and Mexico would “blow a hole” in the US auto industry. There are also concerns over the impact on the housing crisis.

Shortly before he pulled back from the brink of launching a trade war with America’s closest neighbors this month, postponing tariffs on Canada and Mexico until March, Trump acknowledged that they might cause “some pain” for Americans.

“BIDEN INFLATION UP!” the president declared on social media in the minutes after Wednesday’s report. Should prices remain high, he won’t be able to blame his predecessor for long.