\n<\/p>\n
Donald Trump\u2019s chief trade official denied the president\u2019s sweeping tariffs have increased prices for US families, as lawmakers challenged him over cost-of-living concerns across much of the country.<\/p>\n
US inflation surged to a three-year high earlier this year. During a heated exchange before US senators on Wednesday, however, US trade representative Jamieson Greer appeared to claim Trump\u2019s controversial economic agenda had not driven prices higher.<\/p>\n
Asked by the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren if the tariffs had increased prices for American families, Greer said: \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCore inflation fell to 2.6% year on year, much better than in January 2025,\u201d Greer said.<\/p>\n
Core inflation excludes food and energy. Overall inflation is slightly higher than it was when Joe Biden left office.<\/p>\n
Warren said an estimate produced by Democrats and based on the nonpartisan congressional budget office and the treasury department\u2019s own numbers, showed families were paying an average of $1,700 more in tariff costs since Trump\u2019s return to office.<\/p>\n
It comes at a critical time for Trump\u2019s tariffs policy, which suffered a damaging blow in February when the US supreme court ruled that many of those tariffs were illegal.<\/p>\n
The US replaced those tariffs with a 10% tariff regime on much of the world, but this is due to expire on Friday \u2013 and Trump officials, including Greer, have indicated they will replace it with a new wave of duties on imports from overseas.<\/p>\n
During Greer\u2019s appearance before the Senate finance committee on Wednesday, Senator Raphael Warnock said Trump had \u201cmade life more expensive for everybody\u201d before the US-Israel war on Iran sent \u201cenergy prices through the roof\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite this mountain of evidence, you and the president still seem to be in denial that tariffs have raised prices,\u201d Warnock told Greer, \u201ca fact that study after study confirms, and is just basic common sense \u2013 everybody sees it, we\u2019re feeling it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Warnock asked if Greer had \u201cever produced any rigorous peer-evaluated study refuting the fact that the tariffs have contributed to inflation, or is your rebuttal to these conclusion just based on vibes, people\u2019s feelings, politics \u2026 ?\u201d<\/p>\n
Greer replied: \u201cWell, no, we don\u2019t do vibes, senator.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greer began to talk about inflation and the price of eggs over the past month before Warnock pulled him up to answer his question. When Greer began talking about the price of eggs, butter and smartphones, Warnock interjected: \u201cThat\u2019s not my question.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe point is that tariffs contributed to inflation,\u201d Warnock said. \u201cPrices are higher than when the president came into office, and tariffs made it worse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Donald Trump\u2019s chief trade official denied the president\u2019s sweeping tariffs have increased prices for US families, as lawmakers challenged him over cost-of-living concerns across much of the country. US inflation surged to a three-year high earlier this year. During a heated exchange before US senators on Wednesday, however, US trade representative Jamieson Greer appeared to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[689,2086,581,10915,3250,1319,72,430,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-51365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-chief","9":"tag-defends","10":"tag-democrats","11":"tag-denial","12":"tag-hikes","13":"tag-price","14":"tag-tariffs","15":"tag-trade","16":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}