Analysis: Trump fact-checks himself on whether Americans pay for his tariffs

By Daniel Dale, CNN

(CNN) — When Fox News host Laura Ingraham reminded President Donald Trump in an interview this week that coffee prices are high, Trump responded, “Coffee: We’re going to lower some tariffs, we’re going to have some coffee come in. We’re gonna take care of all this stuff very quickly, very easily.”

The “very quickly, very easily” bluster aside, that would be a rather unremarkable response from someone else. It’s obvious that Trump’s global tariffs on imported goods like coffee — a product that is almost entirely imported in the US — have contributed to the big coffee price increases experienced by Americans this year. Consumer Price Index figures for September show coffee was about 15% more expensive on average than it was in January, the month Trump returned to office.

But Trump doesn’t usually acknowledge such truths. He has wrongly insisted for years that tariff costs are covered entirely by foreign countries, or split between foreign countries and US corporations, and do not raise the prices paid by American consumers.

He’s been fact-checked over and over. This time, in suggesting that cutting tariffs will cut prices, he was essentially fact-checking himself.

“Evidence that Trump et al. understand tariffs are taxes that increase prices for consumers, they just usually lie about it,” Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation think tank, posted on X in response to Trump’s comment on Fox. She added in an email: “The President has often claimed that foreigners pay the tariffs and has generally dismissed concerns about the tariffs negatively affecting Americans. By saying he will lift coffee tariffs to provide relief, he is acknowledging the burden that tariffs create on American consumers.”

Trump has usually denied tariff reality

The US government’s tariffs on imported products are paid to the government by importers in the US, adding to the importers’ expenses. Study  after study, and numerous statements from US businesses of all sizes, have confirmed that many importers pass on some or all of these added costs to final consumers.

Trump has repeatedly denied this reality — insisting, against all the evidence, that consumers aren’t negatively affected by tariffs whatsoever.

Compare his comment on Fox to what he said on the campaign trail in 2024: “We’re going to be a tariff nation. It’s not going to be a cost to you, it’s going to be a cost to another country.” Or look at what he said at the White House in May: “Tariffs are the most misunderstood thing maybe in any form of business anywhere in business. Oftentimes the country picks them up, oftentimes the company picks it up; the people don’t pick it up, OK? The people don’t pick it up.”

Bananas, another product almost entirely imported in the US, had an average price increase of about 8% between January and September, Consumer Price Index figures show. Trump had dismissed widespread warnings earlier this year that coffee and banana prices would rise when he declined to exempt those products from his tariff regime, even though the US can’t grow them domestically on a large scale. Tariffs affecting coffee prices include a 50% tariff on products from Brazil, the biggest supplier of Americans’ coffee.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed in a Fox News interview on Wednesday that the administration believes prices will fall after it makes “substantial announcements over the next couple of days” on coffee, bananas and other produce “we don’t grow here in the United States.”

“That will bring the prices down very quickly,” Bessent said.

Time will tell. Companies that raised prices on these products in part because of the tariffs may be reluctant to quickly reduce them even after potential tariff cuts, especially with various global factors having elevated coffee crop prices this year and overall US inflation having increased for five consecutive months.

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