At a campaign rally in August 2024, Donald Trump announced an audacious plan. He committed to doing more to reduce costs for everyday Americans on his first day in office and has done just that. On January 20, 2025, he succeeded Joe Biden as president. Many Americans held their breath hoping to see if his administration was able to deliver on its promises during continued economic uncertainty and despair. The exploding costs for all the essentials we can’t live without—especially food stuff and car prices—have raised serious doubts about the success of any of Trump’s policies.
As of January 2025, the national average price per dozen large eggs is $4.93 (£3.79). By March, after several bouts of avian influenza, the price jumped to an all-time high of $6.23 (£4.78). Since then, those record highs have been replaced with much cheaper prices of $3.49 (£2.68) per dozen. This drop is a welcome sign of market progress. It leads to wonder about the permanence of such gains and what might cause such changes.
While this egg price decrease is welcome news, the grocery aisle has not seen comparable respite elsewhere. Official data confirms that grocery prices have gone up every single month since Trump was inaugurated. The sole exception to that trend was a one-month drop in April. As of September 2025, prices for groceries are up 2.7% from a year ago. Specific items have seen notable price hikes: coffee has risen by 18.9%, ground beef by 12.9%, and bananas by 6.9%.
Yet, at the same time, Trump’s administration has been implementing tariffs that critics say are making food price inflation worse. Coffee is one of our most heavily protected commodities, at a 50% tariff. This is because much of the coffee drunk in the United States originates from Brazil. As at least one expert, chief economist Diane Swonk, pointed out, climate factors have already been devastating coffee production. At the same time, tariffs have caused nasty price jumps.
“On coffee you had climate issues for a very bad growing season and that was exacerbated by a tariff on Brazil and also Colombia.” – Diane Swonk
In the auto space as well, crunched consumers are directly experiencing the pinch of inflationary price increases. In September 2025, the average price of a new vehicle jumped over $50,000 (£38,411) for the first time. This represents a huge jump from $48,283 (£37,092) in January. Ongoing retaliatory tariffs are the main contributor to this increased growth. As Erin Keating recently argued, they’ve been “nothing but inflationary” on the automotive industry over the past year.
“Tariffs, which have been the biggest factor in the automotive industry over the last 12 months, have been nothing but inflationary.” – Erin Keating
Electricity prices skyrocketed during Trump’s presidency. In August 2025, the average had soared to 17.62 cents per kilowatt-hour—up from 15.94 cents per kilowatt-hour in January. This increase is yet another stressor on the financial precariousness of households around the country.
While some prices have seen declines in recent months, such as butter and margarine (-2%), ice cream (-0.7%), and frozen vegetables (-0.7%), the overall trend in rising costs has led economists to scrutinize Trump’s economic policies.
Professor David Ortega underscores that while the president can influence certain economic aspects, his control over food prices remains limited, especially in the short term. Of course, he cautions that external factors, like labor costs, are a key part of the pricing equation.
“The president of the United States has very little control over the price of food, especially in the short term.” – Professor David Ortega
Even now, the Trump administration is still arguing that its policies were needed to fight inflation. White House spokesman Kush Desai stated that “President Trump’s supply-side policies are taming Joe Biden’s inflation crisis,” framing the current economic challenges as a continuation of previous administration’s issues.
Trump is very excited about how he’s going to make things so much cheaper for Americans. He reiterated his commitment to lowering prices across various sectors during his speeches:
“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One.” – Donald Trump
Nevertheless, experts warn not to take at face value dreams of overnight results for any of those pledges. In his public comment, Stanford University Professor James Sweeney pointed out that many of these price reductions simply aren’t possible within the fast-paced timelines suggested by Trump. He remarked that it was “technically impossible [to halve prices] at the time he made the promise.”
The severity of today’s economic situation makes it hard to judge outright whether or not Trump has been effective in tackling surging prices. Growing demand from new, innovative technologies are posing challenges to stabilize these prices. To add insult to injury, widespread supply chain disruptions are making this planning much more difficult.