hospitality industry just as the critical holiday season kicks into high gear.”
“Scotch, Cognac and Irish Whiskey are value-added agricultural products that cannot be produced in the United States,” Swonger added.
Asked if further changes were planned, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, “I don’t think it’ll be necessary.”
“We just did a little bit of a rollback,” he said. “The prices of coffee were a little bit high, now they’ll be on the low side in a very short period.”
NEW FOCUS ON AFFORDABILITY
Trump has upended the global trading system by imposing a 10% base tariff on imports from every country, plus additional specific duties that vary from state to state.
Trump has focused squarely on the issue of affordability in recent weeks, while insisting that any higher costs were triggered by policies enacted by Biden, and not his own tariff policies.
Consumers have remained frustrated over high grocery prices, which economists say have been fueled in part by import tariffs and could rise further next year as companies start passing on the full brunt of the import duties.
The top Democrat on the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, Richard Neal, said the Trump administration was “putting out a fire that they started and claiming it as progress.”
“The Trump Administration is finally admitting publicly what we’ve all known from the start: Trump’s Trade War is hiking costs on people,” Neal said in a statement. “Since implementing these tariffs, inflation has increased and manufacturing has contracted month after month.”
Source: Reuters
