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President Donald Trump announced extensive tariffs on April 2, with the possibility to dramatically change costs of essential everyday items for American consumers. He has unveiled tariffs for 60 countries including Cambodia, Vietnam, China, and the European Union, which he deemed the “worst offenders” when it comes to trade imbalances. Here are five types of items that may see price increases over the next few months as a result. Gas The U.S.s primary source of natural gas imports is Canada, and though Trump announced a lower tariff of 10% for Canadian energy imports, consumers are likely to still feel the effects. In 2022, 99% of the U.S.s total natural gas imports were from Canada. These tariffs may lead to increased heating costs and gas pump prices. Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics and trade at the Cato Institute, predicted that consumers will see an increase of 10 to 20 cents per gallon with the 10% tariff on Canadian crude oil, according to NPR. Electronics It might not be the best time to invest in that new smartphone. In 2024, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam were the top three exporters of laptops and tablets to the U.S. Now, they’re some of the countries most taxed by the new tariff. Almost all consumer electronics are likely to see price hikes as a result. These impacted products also include lithium-ion batteries and video game consoles. A Nintendo representative told CNBC that pre-orders for the widely-anticipated Nintendo Switch 2 would be delayed to an indeterminate date due to tariff concerns. Toys The increase in costs are not limited to smartphones and tablets. Ed Brzytwa, vice president for international trade at the Consumer Technology Association, estimates that toys made in China will likely cost consumers at least 30% more than their current price, according to CNN. These toys account for close to 77% of all toys sold in the U.S., and they are all about to face the upcoming 54% tariff. Cars A 25% tariff on finished cars took effect on April 3, and a 25% tariff on car parts is set to take effect by May 3 latest. Mexico is the seventh-largest passenger vehicle manufacturer in the world, and close to 76% of its exports go to the U.S. In a 21-page analysis obtained by AP, economist Art Laffer estimates that fully implemented tariffs could increase per-vehicle costs by close to $4,711. A 25% tariff would not only shrink, or possibly eliminate, profit margins for U.S. manufacturers but also weaken their ability to compete with international rivals, Laffer writes in the analysis. Apparel China and Vietnam, two of the most impacted by the tariffs, are also two of the top sources of foreign-made clothes for U.S. consumers, shipping close to $14 billion worth of clothing to the U.S. in 2024. Even customers of fast fashion and internet-famous online retailers like Shein, Temu, and AliExpress will take a hit. Beginning on May 2, the 54% tariff will apply to packages worth less than $800 coming from China and Hong Kong, which will include packages from these online retailers. These five categories make up only a portion of imported goods. Tariffs will continue to take effect over the next few months, possibly triggering an economic slowdown and increasing prices for American consumers as a whole.
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E-Commerce
Over the past few years, the job market has remained relatively strong despite rising inflation and other economic headwinds. Even amid ongoing cuts to the federal workforce, the jobs report released today offered a more optimistic outlook than many economists had anticipated: In March, employers added about 228,000 jobs, far exceeding the monthly average of 158,000 jobs over the last year. The number of hours worked each week also remained steady last month, as did hourly wage growth. President Trump was quick to take credit for the job growth captured by the report. But the celebratory mood has been dampened as the administration’s long-awaited (and unprecedentedly high) global tariffs take effectand financial markets are already feeling the impact. Many experts have already noted that the latest jobs numbers may have little bearing on how the market will actually fare in the coming monthsand what the effect could be on employers and workers. As one economist told the New York Times: What we are really seeing is the calm before the storm.” The impact of tariffs already The fallout from Trumps tariffs is already well underway. Global markets have taken a significant hit, dropping to levels that havent been seen since the height of the pandemic in 2020. Economists have warned that the tariffs are more extreme than those imposed by the famed 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which is believed to have exacerbated the Great Depression. “Today was the worst stock market experience in five years,” renowned economist and former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers wrote on Thursday, as part of a series of posts on X. “Usually when you have a terrible stock market experience, it’s because a bank fails, a pandemic, a hurricane, or because some other country does something. We don’t have these kinds of stock market responses in response to policies that the president of the United States is proud of. That is something that is entirely without precedent. It is extremely dangerous.” How higher prices might affect hiring While tariffs are usually intended to be a source of revenue for the federal government, research shows that the effects are typically shouldered by consumers and businesses. As the tariffs lead to higher prices for both parties, experts say companies will likely pull back on hiring and eventually resort to layoffs to cut costs. The Trump administration has argued that while tariffs may drive up prices, they will also help fuel job creation stateside, particularly across manufacturing. While that could be true to some extent, those gains could be outweighed by other job lossesor the increased use of automation to mitigate costs for companies. When analyzing the impact of tariffs levied during Trump’s first term, some economists found that manufacturing employment remained more or less unchanged; in other industries like agriculture, however, tariffs catalyzed job losses. Others have argued that manufacturing employment actually dropped overall, despite modest gains in job creation across the steel industry. How business leaders are preparing Still, economists of all stripes seem concerned about the potential repercussions of the sweeping new tariffs introduced by the Trump administration. There’s already evidence that companies are being more cautious: In March, a survey of chief financial officers found that one in four companies were cutting back on hiring and making changes to their capital spending plans for 2025, in anticipation of Trump’s tariffs. Nearly a third of the 400 companies who were surveyed had cited trade policy and tariffsas well as the uncertainty around themas a source of anxiety. The tariffs were also the number-one business concern among chief financial officers in the first quarter of 2025. Even industries that are not directly impacted by the tariffs could take a financial hit if consumers are spending less overall, which in turn could trickle down to workers. The uncertainty associated with tariffs could lead more companies to pause hiring. While the labor market has largely been stable, it has still cooled over the past few yearsmaking it less resilient to unpredictable forces like the tariffs. Employers have, for the most part, wrested control from workers in the aftermath of the pandemic, especially as they have imposed strict return to work mandates and tightened their budgets. Layoffs might have plateaued to some extent, but companies have also not been adding as many jobs. Many workers have reported finding it more difficult to land a new job. In January, data from the Labor Department indicated that it was taking longer for people who were unemployed or laid off to find new work. As Trump’s tariffs continue to send shock waves across the business world, workers likely need to brace themselves for yet another period of upheaval in the job market.
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E-Commerce
After Trump administration job cuts, nearly half of National Weather Service forecast offices have 20% vacancy rates twice that of just a decade ago as severe weather chugs across the nation’s heartland, according to data obtained by The Associated Press. Detailed vacancy data for all 122 weather field offices show eight offices are missing more than 35% of their staff including those in Arkansas and Kentucky where tornadoes and torrential rain hit this week according to statistics crowd-sourced by more than a dozen National Weather Service employees. Experts said vacancy rates of 20% or higher amount to critical understaffing, and 55 of the 122 sites reach that level. The weather offices issue routine daily forecasts, but also urgent up-to-the-minute warnings during dangerous storm outbreaks such as the tornadoes that killed seven people this week and catastrophic flooding that’s continuing through the weekend. The weather service this week has logged at least 75 tornado and 1,277 severe weather preliminary reports. Because of staffing shortages and continued severe weather, meteorologists at the Louisville office were unable to survey tornado damage Thursday, which is traditionally done immediately to help improve future forecasts and warnings, the local weather office told local media in Kentucky. Meteorologists there had to chose between gathering information that will help in the future and warning about immediate danger. It’s a crisis situation, said Brad Coleman, a past president of the American Meteorological Society who used to be the meteorologist in charge of the weather service’s Seattle office and is now a private meteorologist. I am deeply concerned that we will inevitably lose lives as a result of the added risk due to this short-staffing. Former National Weather Service chief Louis Uccellini said if the numbers are right, it’s trouble. No one can predict when any office gets stretched so thin that it will break, but these numbers would indicate that several of them are there or getting close, especially when you factor that large segments of the country are facing oncoming threats of severe weather, flooding rains while others are facing ominous significant fire risks, Uccellini said in an email. The vacancy numbers were compiled in an informal but comprehensive effort by weather service workers after the cuts spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. They checked on individual office staffing levels and looked at how they compared to the past. Staffing levels, including vacancies, are detailed and cross-referenced by offices, regions, positions and past trends, with special notes on whether efforts are being made to fill them. The AP, after obtaining the list from a source outside the weather service, sought to verify the numbers by calling individual weather offices, checking online staff lists and interviewing other employees not involved in the data-gathering effort. The workers’ data sometimes varied slightly from data shown on weather service websites, though employees said those could be out of date. Rep. Eric Sorensen, an Illinois Democrat and the only meteorologist in Congress, said his office independently obtained the data and he verified parts of it with weather professionals he knows in Midwestern weather service offices, which are called WFOs. The Davenport-Quad Cities office near his home has a 37.5% vacancy rate. Theyre doing heroic effort. Just with what happened the other day with the tornado outbreak, the killer tornado outbreak, I saw incredible work being done by the WFOs down around Memphis and up to Louisville. Incredible work that saved peoples lives, Sorensen told the AP on Friday. Going forward with these types of cuts, we cant guarantee that people are going to be as safe as they were. I’m incredibly concerned because this affects everyone in every part of the country, Sorensen said, noting the potential for severe storms Friday in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s home district near Shreveport, Louisiana, where the data shows a 13% vacancy rate, well below the average for the south and the rest of the country. The employees’ data, which goes back to 2015, showed that in March 2015 the overall vacancy rate was 9.3%. Ten years later, as of March 21, it was 19%. The weather service did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Some northern and central stations such as Rapid City, South Dakota, with a 41.7% vacancy rate, Albany, New York, at 25%, Portland, Maine, at 26.1% and Omaha, Nebraska at 34.8% have been so short-staffed that they’ve curtailed weather balloon launches that said provide vital observations for accurate forecasts. The vacancies go beyond meteorologists who do forecasts. Twenty-three offices are without the meteorologist-in-charge who oversees the office. Sixteen have vacancies in the crucial warning coordination meteorologist job which makes sure emergency officials and the public prepare for oncoming weather disasters. The Houston office, with a 30% vacancy rate, is missing both those top positions, according to the data and the office’s own website. Houston has so much damage from flooding, hurricanes and even a derecho that their (damage) numbers are through the roof, said Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist for Climate Central and a former television meteorologist. The National Weather Service employees are still going to do everything they can to keep people safe and prepared. Its just that much harder and it puts lives at risk, Placky said. This time of the year and in this situation, this is when severe weather season peaks and were heading into the season of the biggest extremes with wildfires, with hurricanes, with extreme heat, which is our deadliest of all of extreme weathers. One weather service field office chief, who asked not to be identified because of fears of job loss, said the lack of technicians to fix radar and other needed equipment could be critically dangerous. People are bending over backwards to cope with the lack of staffing, the chief meteorologist said. The burden is going to kill us.” Northern Illinois atmospheric sciences professor Victor Gensini and others compared being stretched thin to cracks in aviation safety. “The question becomes, what falls through the cracks because theyre busy doing other things or theyre short-staffed,” Gensini said. Maybe they cant answer the phone to take a critical weather report thats coming in. Maybe theres so many storms in the counties that theyre responsible for that they cant physically issue warnings for every single storm because they dont have enough people working on the radar. These are all theoretical concerns, but its sort of like when you read about aircraft disasters and how they occur, Gensini said. Its the cascading of risk, right? Its the compounding, like the pilot was tired. The pilot missed the cue. Seth Borenstein, AP science writer The Associated Presss climate and nvironmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
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E-Commerce
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