U.S. wholesale inflation surged unexpectedly last month as President Donald Trump’s sweeping taxes on imports are pushing costs higher.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. wholesale inflation surged unexpectedly last month, signaling that President Donald Trump’s sweeping taxes on imports are pushing costs up and that higher prices for consumers may be on the way.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that its producer price index — which measures inflation before it hits consumers— rose 0.9% last month from June, biggest jump in more than three years. Compared with a year earlier, wholesale prices rose 3.3%.

The numbers were much higher than economists had expected.

Prices rose faster for producers than consumers last month, suggesting that U.S. importers may, for now, be eating the cost of Trump’s tariffs rather than passing them on to customers.

That may not last.

“It will only be a matter of time before producers pass their higher tariff-related costs onto the backs of inflation-weary consumers,” wrote Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at fwdbonds, a financial markets research firm.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core producer prices rose 0.9% from June, biggest month-over-month jump since March 2022. Compared with a year ago, core wholesale prices rose 3.7% after posting a 2.6% year-over-year jump in June.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    14 hours ago

    • Tariffs will force outsourced manufacturers to bring back industry to the US, because they will raise the cost of imports

    • Tariffs will not raise the price of primarily imported domestic consumers goods

    You cannot truly understand Trumpism until you can hold these two ideas in your brain simultaneously, without experiencing dissonance.

    Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core producer prices rose 0.9% from June, biggest month-over-month jump since March 2022. Compared with a year ago, core wholesale prices rose 3.7% after posting a 2.6% year-over-year jump in June.

    Globally speaking, this isn’t horrible. It’s not good, but plenty of countries that don’t enjoy a global reserve currency have experienced far worse.

    However, we’ve also seen the USD slide a full 15-pts relative to the Euro since January.

    That size shift in the Forex Market suggests a significant drift away from the Dollar as a reserve currency. Combined with our total disregard for accrued debts and the repeated whispers among conservative congressmen about balancing the budget through a debt default, we’re playing an incredibly dangerous game.