Trump tariffs to make prices great

World War Fee President Donald Trump last week announced a sweeping new round of tariffs, setting the stage for price hikes across consumer tech, pro gear, and almost anything else that crosses a border. The duties, hitting nearly all major US trading partners, range from 10 to 50 percent , based on a bizarre, flawed formula. Even uninhabited islands are on the list.

The latest spin is levies on penguin nations are to prevent countries using the territories as loopholes to avoid tariffs. Stock markets have already taken a hammering: The S&P 500 index is down more than 10 percent in a month, likewise the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the FTSE 100, and others. The fallout will extend to wallets.

That should come as no surprise. About a week ago, Colin Grabow, associate director at the libertarian Cato Institute, warned that price increases were coming. "Tariffs are a costly and inefficient tax usually borne by the importing country’s consumers," he said.

"Unfortunately, Trump believes, against the overwhelming sentiment of economists , that higher tariffs are good for the economy." Tariffs make goods more expensive to import. Companies could absorb the cost, lowering profit margins while seeking or building out domestic manufacturing to avoid the levies.

Or they could pass on the fees to end customers. And that's what we're seeing. Blackmagic Design, a professional video equipment seller based in Melbourne, Australia, announced that it would hike prices, but only for US shoppers.

"Due to new tariffs, most of our US prices have increased," the biz said . "Please check our US website for details. Prices in other countries are currently unchanged.

" The Blackmagic URSA Cine, a high-end digital camera, went from $6,995 in January 2025, to $7,695 currently . In Canada, the camera lists for CA$10,425, which is about $7,342 at the exchange rate at the time of writing. Flanders Scientific, a maker of professional post-production equipment based in Alpharetta, Georgia, US, this week said it expects to raise prices by the end of the week.

"As you are likely aware, steep new tariffs have been implemented and this will necessitate an increase in our pricing in the near future," the biz said . A price increase for most products, estimated to range from two percent to 10 percent, is set to take effect by Friday, April 11 at 1600 ET. "This is to allow us a few more days to complete a thorough cost analysis as we aim to minimize the impact to end users and to give customers that may have been considering a near term purchase approximately one week to complete those purchases at the current prices," the monitor maker said.

Apple's iPhone 16 Pro Max, now priced at $1,599 for the 1TB model, could reach $2,300, an increase of 43 percent, according to analysts at Rosenblatt Securities, per Reuters . There is whispering today that Apple sent five planes of iPhones and other products from India to America at the end of March to avoid a 10 percent tariff. The CEOs of US retail giants Target and Best Buy have warned that price increases on consumer goods are coming.

The two companies source many of their goods from Canada, China, and Mexico, all affected by the import levies. Some suppliers may go down the Framework route and just give up selling to US punters completely. "Due to the new tariffs that came into effect on April 5, we’re temporarily pausing US sales on a few base Framework Laptop 13 systems (Ultra 5 125H and Ryzen 5 7640U)," the laptop maker said , explaining that a 10 percent tariff on electronics imported into the States from Taiwan would mean selling the PCs at a loss at their current prices.

"For now, these models will be removed from our US site." The import levies also threw a spanner in the works for Nintendo and its Switch 2 console launch in North America. Citing Olu Sonola, head of US economic research at Fitch Ratings, the Associated Press reports that the average US import tariff rate is now 22 percent, up from just 2.

5 percent in 2024. The stated purpose of this round of tariffs is "to strengthen the international economic position of the United States and protect American workers." "These tariffs adjust for the unfairness of ongoing international trade practices, balance our chronic goods trade deficit, provide an incentive for re-shoring production to the United States, and provide our foreign trading partners with an opportunity to rebalance their trade relationships with the United States," the White House said.

But tariffs historically have made America less productive. According to a 2024 paper from Alexander Klein, an economic history professor with the University of Sussex Business School in England, and Christopher Meissner, an economics professor from the University of California, Davis, tariffs reduced American productivity during the period between 1870 and 1909 when tariff rates averaged 35 percent. The paper titled "Did Tariffs Make American Manufacturing Great? New Evidence from the Gilded Age," asks the question, "Did tariffs boost US manufacturing productivity and help the US to emerge as a globally competitive manufacturing exporter?" And it answers, "Our evidence suggests they did not.

" The economist found that "tariffs may have reduced labor productivity in manufacturing by weakening import competition and by inducing entry of smaller, less productive domestic firms." Meissner told The Register he believes tariffs are mainly counterproductive. For one thing, making stuff in America to avoid import tariffs will be offset by increased costs – overseas factory workers get paid less than Americans, for one thing, and building the necessary factories is another upfront expense.

The tariffs are going to do nothing to help the cost side for manufacturers. In many cases, it's going to be way more expensive to produce here. So that right there is negative "They're unlikely to have the intended objectives, I think for a lot of reasons," he said.

"It's a complicated world right now, a little bit different than the 19th century we studied, but it's a world where companies buy stuff from the entire world and use those parts and components and services to make a final product. "The tariffs are going to do nothing to help the cost side for manufacturers. In many cases, it's going to be way more expensive to produce here.

So that right there is negative. "In the best case scenario where you do get some reprieve from international competition, it's just not efficient. The reason we buy our Nikes and other footwear from Vietnam and our textiles from Bangladesh is because they have a comparative advantage in doing those things.

It's low cost. It's just going to be much higher cost to produce those things here. Wages are higher.

" US workers, said Meissner, just won't accept the wages offered in less developed nations. The result of the tariffs will be higher costs for companies, no matter where they're located, that source materials or components from the international supply chain. "That's just about everybody these days, from the automakers to the tech companies to the remains of the textile and furniture production in the United States," he said.

"Just about everybody relies on something from abroad these days." That might be just one reason why Elon Musk – the Tesla tycoon and President Trump's éminence grease – broke ranks , publicly flamed one of the White House's trade advisers who backed the tariffs, and urged for a "zero tariff situation" between America and Europe. Germany's economy minister said this was a sign of "weakness" from the SpaceX oligarch.

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