This story was written by Teen Vogue's 2024 Student Correspondents, a team of college students and recent graduates covering the election cycle from key battleground states.
With Donald Trump’s reelection, many young people are posting on social media about what to expect from Trump’s proposed tariffs, how they as consumers will be affected, and what they should buy — if they should buy — before prices rise.
In simple terms, a tariff is a sales tax on items imported from foreign countries. Trump plans to implement a 25% tariff on all goods imported from Canada and Mexico, as well as an additional 10% tariff on anything imported from China, The Guardian reported.
“Some of that is stuff we consume directly from abroad, especially food,” Adam Hersh, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a DC-based think tank, tells Teen Vogue.
In exit polls from the election, voters expressed concern about the economy under the Biden administration, pointing to inflation and high prices for groceries and similar items. That financial struggle prompted some voters to cast a ballot for Trump rather than Kamala Harris. But even though voters deemed inflation a top priority to address, Hersh points out, Trump’s tariffs are “designed to raise prices.”
Influencer Nikita Redkar took to social media after Trump’s reelection to explain to users how Trump’s tariffs will directly affect young people. In a TikTok that Redkar posted, she used a $10 coffee she bought as an example: Let’s say the coffee cost $5 to make, with the shop charging an additional $5 so they make a profit, she said. Since most coffee is imported from abroad, Trump’s tariffs would mean the coffee could now cost $8 to make, with the shop only profiting $2 if it kept the price at $10. To compensate, the shop might raise the price so it's still able to make a profit, which means customers could end up shelling out $15 for a coffee there instead of $10.
To further discuss how tariffs will directly impact young people, Teen Vogue met with Hersh over Zoom.
This conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Teen Vogue: Trump has proposed major tariffs on imported goods, especially those coming from China. What impact would that have?
Adam Hersh: Well, first of all, it’s going to raise prices. I think that's an important thing for people to know. It raises the price of the foreign goods relative to that of the domestic produced goods [made here in the US]. But because that foreign good that's been competing in our domestic market is now more expensive, that gives domestic producers an opportunity to raise their prices as well, even though it's not more expensive for them to produce things, so they get a higher profit rate.
So it's not the foreign countries or foreign companies that are paying this tax…. We're paying it, and we're paying it directly into the corporate profits. This is something that Trump can and says he will do with the swipe of his executive pen.
TV: How would higher consumer prices and inflation impact young people in particular, many of whom are already having a hard time getting by?
AH: They're going to have a harder time getting by. And the things that are really important for young people, not just in consuming but as they grow up and develop in life — getting a house, getting college, buying a car — these things are all going to be more expensive than the electronics, devices that we all rely on. It's going to be more expensive. In the short term, we know it's going to raise these prices for everything, pretty much, and particularly where, you know, we're really shooting ourselves in the foot….
If we put a tariff on coffee, put tariffs on avocados, we're just paying more for things that we can't produce ourselves…. We have the Federal Reserve that's trying to manage inflation, so when they see this happening, they're going to want to tighten monetary policy. That means they're going to raise interest rates…. Everything becomes more expensive, but in particular, credit card debt, student debt, auto debt, and of course… buying a house will become further out of reach for young people [if interest rates are higher].
TV: How do tariffs actually get enacted? Can Trump do this via executive order or does he need Congress to do it via legislation?
AH: Congress has given the president, historically, the law's authority to declare economic emergencies, import emergencies. Under those authorities, the president can do this as they see fit…. There will be some political resistance to this, and what happened in the past is that they created a process for importers to petition to have an exclusion. So even though there will be a broadly applied tariff, certain people will get licenses to import without the tariff, and given the lack of transparency we're expecting in the incoming administration, this could open the door for a lot of corrupt dealing.
TV: Can you talk through some of Trump's other economic policies and how they will impact young people?
AH: I think the mass deportation policy is going to be one of the most impactful, and in a bad way, economic policies he's told us he wants to pursue. If he achieves what he says he wants to achieve, he's talking about ripping 12 million people out of communities, out of jobs and workplaces, across schools, across the country. That has trillions of dollars of economic impacts of losses for consumers. They’re business owners, workers, and producers. So we won't be able to readily fill those jobs. The economy is already operating near full employment. That means we don't have more people to fill the jobs. Everyone is working that really wants to or can…. We'll have massive labor shortages…. not to mention the horrific humanitarian implications of this policy of ripping families apart.
TV: What should young people do to prepare? Does buying goods in advance make sense?
AH: People need to start paying attention to understand what's happening and what are the causes of things that are affecting them and their economic situation. [Take action,] whether it's something you do for yourself in your personal life or something you do together in a community, or more broadly, in social organizing….
There's a trade-off to stocking up. You have to pay for stuff now, and that means you can't pay for other stuff that you may want. Some stuff may not last. It's not convenient to hold on to a big stockpile of stuff. So you can do a little bit of that, but you're kind of in for the ride.
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