Mark Perry at the American Enterprise Institute notes that that particular appliance has seen its largest price increase over a 3-month span ever:
If you’re unfortunate enough to be shopping for a new washing machine, you can thank the Trump tariffs on imported washing machines, washing machine parts, steel and aluminum for the largest three-month price increase — 16.4% from February to May this year — in the 40-year history of the BLS series for Major Appliances: Laundry Equipment that started in January 1978 (see chart above). In the May CPI report (see Table 2), the one-month increase in the CPI for Laundry Equipment of 7.4% in May followed a 9.6% increase in April, and in both months was the largest monthly price increase of any of the 300 individual CPI categories or sub-categories. For the month of May, the 7.4% increase in the washing machine series was twice the increase of the next highest increase of 3.7% for educational books and supplies (mostly college textbooks).
And the irony is that the Very Stable Genius's protectionism was ostensibly about enhancing the economic well-being of Americans:
As simple economics tells us, the Trump tariffs on washing machines aren’t imposed on foreign appliance producers like Samsung and LG as much as they are imposed on Americans in the form of higher prices for consumers. Likewise, Trump’s ill-advised trade war, which started in January when he approved the tariffs on imported washing machines, is really largely a war on Americans. The February-May 16.4% increase in the CPI for washing machines is just the first of many price increases on US consumers and firms from Trump’s trade war that are guaranteed to lead to net job losses and impoverish, not enrich Americans.
Care to try to spin this, shills?
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