The wonder of American supermarkets is a way that exists outside of the season. A walk to major grocery stores on a boring winter day will bring you fresh summer fruits and vegetables, including avocados, tomatoes, berries, peppers, cucumbers, squash and green beans. However, American supermarkets do not exist outside of economics. These fruits and vegetables are Mostly grown In Mexico, it means they are tied up by President Donald Trump’s trade war. Last week he enacted a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico. Two days later, he suspended most tariffs until April 2nd, and suspended 20% tariffs on products from China. $11 handheld vacuum I bought it from Tem on a whim. But perhaps the most direct way for Americans to feel tariffs are in the grocery store.
Almost 60% of fresh fruit in the US It has been importedMore than a third of the country’s fresh vegetables are. Most of them travel from Mexico, but Canada is also involved in the US food supply. 20% of the country’s vegetables come from the north from our neighbors by value. For all the discussion about what people should eat, one thing everyone almost agrees with is that fruits and vegetables are good for you. Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promoted many dangerous ideas about American diet in his “Make America Health Again” campaign, but he’s the right thing to do with Americans I haven’t eaten enough greenery. Tariffs exacerbate the problem. “People will soon eat less fruits and vegetables and are more likely to rely on processed foods,” says Mariana Chilton, a public professor at Drexel University and author of the book. Painful The truth about American hungertold me. The direct consequences of Trump’s tariffs could be urging Americans to eat worse already.
Ideally, customs duties could be offset by increasing more produce in the US. This is what Trump demands as part of his “America First” agenda. but, Atlantic OceanYasmin Tayag wrote last month that doing so required an overhaul of the food system. It also means dealing with labor shortages, increasing the number of farmers, finding the right land, building new infrastructure, processing and shipping each new crop. ”
So how expensive production can you get? Tariffs are not as simple as hitting the 25% extra charge on avocado, as they apply to the value of the border products, not retail prices. If tariffs become effective in the next year or so, Yale’s budget lab predicts a 2.9% increase in fruits and vegetables. “These sound like a small number,” Ernie Tedesci, the lab’s economic director, told me. “These are not a minority,” which is equivalent to “one dive in two years’ worth of fresh food inflation.” And that 2.9% increase is average, meaning it encompasses all If you are a big tomato eater and you like the green bean side, then you will produce prices that include fruits and vegetables grown in the US, tariffs will be especially painful.
The Budget Lab expects a bump of 1.7% on food prices overall. However, this is not even distributed. On the other side of the cost spectrum, packaged foods are one of the least affected. They are made from imported fruits and vegetables, some of which may come from Mexico and Canada, but the overall amount tends to be negligible. (There aren’t that many tomatoes in frozen pizza.) “There may be other things that those food companies import,” Michigan food economist David Ortega told me about packaging and other things. But “the pressure there will be much lower than the actual fresh produce.”
In other words, Twinkies might be a little more expensive, but tomatoes might be even more expensive. Sarah Bowen, a sociologist at North Carolina State University, said that would make it difficult for people to eat healthy. In her research, she told me that mom was interviewing her food choices, “One of the things that came up over and over was that people wanted to buy healthier foods, especially fresh fruits, but couldn’t afford them.” “We asked mom, ‘If you spent more money on food, what would you buy?’ And the most common answer was fresh fruit, especially strawberries, grapes, what children like. “Even if you can swing it, even discerning or vaguely price-consciousness, there is a point in the consumer reaching its limits and thinking about it, You know what, no. “It’s clear that people are already very concerned about food prices,” Bowen said.
Of course, these changes only occur at margins. Many people may still buy avocados that cost an extra 50 cents. Caitlyn Daniel, a Harvard researcher, said tariffs could be perversely and unpleasantly upside down. When budgets get tight, the first thing you buy is “people just want to cut back,” she said — salti snacks, cookies, soda. That would be a limited victory. “In general, you’ll probably see a decline in consumption of fresh produce, that’s not good,” she said. Millions of Americans who are already not eating enough vegetables will have more reasons not to do so. Even in front of tariffs, fresh fruits and vegetables, it only makes up “nearly a tenth” of the average middle class grocery budget, Tedesti is pulling out the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer spending investigation data.
The comfort is that Americans still have many ways to reduce the costs of broccoli. “The alternative has some latitude,” Daniel said. Instead of buying something fresh, people may buy canned or frozen options “the quality of the food doesn’t really change,” she said. America grows many other fruits and vegetables. Most of the country spinachfor example, it has already grown domestically.
Price alone doesn’t explain why Americans eat their own way. However, it can be emphasized that tariffs are fundamental to understanding the country’s diet. In her research, Daniel discovered that people spend quite a lot of time continuing to eat fresh produce even when they are bound by cash. “Whether people concluded at the level of trying to buy from cheaper retailers,” she said. Tariffs or tariffs are less effective than ensuring that they can actually buy it. For an administration that wants to “make America healthy again,” increasing prices for fruit and vegetables may not be where it starts.
