The tariff rate for most countries is now lower than initially proposed, though Trump announced a slate of new import taxes last week. Already this week, the president has threatened to “substantially” raise import taxes on goods from India.
Tariff impacts have taken time to show up in the data, in part because they’ve been implemented later or at different rates than first announced, Oxford Economics’ Vanden Houten said.
The forecasting firm is projecting the average tariff rate on U.S. imports will land at around 20% — up from 2% at the beginning of the year — and the consumer price index inflation measure will peak at 3.5% in the fourth quarter, she said.
“Things are unfolding more slowly,” Vanden Houten said, “but I don’t think that we should assume that, ‘OK, this is not going to be so bad.’”
For now, Slinger and her husband are following the news and planning accordingly, from buying needed furniture before tariffs took effect to keeping an eye on what federal budget cuts might mean for their jobs at the University of Minnesota.
And lately, he’s been reading travel guides as they dream about a trip to Australia.