WASHINGTON — Sweeping taxes on imports cost the average American household almost $1,200 since Donald Trump returned to the White House this year, according to calculations by Democrats on Congress' Joint Economic Committee.
Using Treasury Department numbers on revenue from tariffs and Goldman Sachs estimates of who ends up paying for them, the Democrats' report Thursday found that American consumers' share of the bill came to almost $159 billion — or $1,198 per household — from February through November.
"This report shows that (Trump's) tariffs have done nothing but drive prices even higher for families," said Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the economic committee. "At a time when both parties should be working together to lower costs, the president's tax on American families is simply making things more expensive."
A person shops for produce Nov. 15 at a market in San Francisco.
In his second term, Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy that favored free trade. He imposed double-digit tariffs on almost every country on earth. According to Yale University's Budget Lab, the average U.S. tariff has shot up from 2.4% at the beginning of the year to 16.8%, the highest since 1935.
The president claims the import taxes will protect U.S. industries from unfair foreign competition, bring factories to the United States and raise money for the Treasury.
"President Trump's tariffs have actually secured trillions in investments to make and hire in America as well as historic trade deals that finally level the playing field for American workers and industries," said White House Spokesman Kush Desai.
The taxes are paid by importers who typically pass along the higher costs to their customers.
President Donald Trump dances Tuesday after speaking at the Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono, Pa.
Democrats did well in elections last month in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere largely because voters blame Trump and the Republicans for the high cost of living, just as they blamed Trump's predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, for the same thing a year earlier.
Economist Kimberly Clausing of the UCLA School of Law and the Peterson Institute for International Economics told a House subcommittee last week that Trump's tariffs amount to "the largest tax increase on American consumers in a generation, lowering standards of living for all Americans."
Clausing, a Treasury Department tax official in the Biden administration, calculated that Trump's import taxes "amount to an annual tax increase of about $1,700 for an average household."
