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(The Hill) — President Donald Trump’s potential plan to impose a 20 percent broad tariff on all imports could put a squeeze on households, especially those on the lower end of the income spectrum, an analysis from The Budget Lab at Yale found.
In the analysis released by the policy research center this week, the group found that a 20 percent tariff on all imports would bring the average effective U.S. tariff rate to the highest since 1872 when stacked together with the other tariffs that have taken effect in recent months.
Researchers said the proposal would increase prices somewhere between 2.1 percent and 2.6 percent, depending on how other countries retaliate to Trump’s new tariffs and the Federal Reserve’s response.
“This is equivalent to a loss of purchasing power of $3,400-4,200 per household on average in 2024 dollars,” the group said.
The report comes as Trump prepares to announce billions of dollars in new import taxes Wednesday. The president is reportedly still deciding between imposing a one flat tariff on all imports, a flat tax on imports from certain countries or customized import tax rates for other countries.
If Trump goes with a 20 percent flat tariff, the Budget Lab found it could slow economic growth this year when adjusting for inflation, estimating real gross domestic product (GDP) growth could come in 0.9 to 1.0 percentage points lower this year.
“In the long-run, the U.S. economy is persistently 0.3-0.6 percent smaller, the equivalent of $90-180 billion annually in 2024 dollars,” the analysis said, while noting that world GDP could also shrink in the long run, though, it added, “China’s GDP is largely unscathed.”
Food prices could also rise, the analysis found, as well as the cost of crops, fresh produce, oil, gasoline and auto prices.
“For the average new car sold in 2024, this would be the equivalent of an extra $3,700 to the price, with foreign cars and cars with high foreign content relatively more exposed,” the analysis stated.