Trump's tariffs collide with a key campaign promise: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, Kristen Welker explores the tension between President Donald Trump’s economic plans and the pledges he made on the campaign trail. Shannon Pettypiece also answers a reader question on how tariffs affect prices. Plus, Ben Kamisar and Alexandra Marquez examine the different paths potential Democratic presidential contenders are staking out early in Trump’s second term. 

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— Adam Wollner

Trump's tariffs collide with a key campaign promise

By Kristen Welker

One of President Donald Trump’s central campaign promises focused on bringing down high prices and providing relief to voters who were struggling to make ends meet. 

It’s an issue that helped him win. The economy was the top issue for voters in November, according to exit polls, and voters who said inflation had caused them and their families “a severe hardship” backed Trump by a wide margin. 

“When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time, and I won an election based on that,” Trump told me last December. “We’re going to bring those prices way down.” 

But now, the president is acknowledging that Americans may feel some economic pain from his sweeping tariffs. 

“We think we’re doing very well,” Trump told reporters yesterday. “Again, there’ll be a transition, cost, and transition problems, but in the end it’s going to be — it’s going to be a beautiful thing.”

Several Trump supporters who recently spoke to NBC News said they are willing to endure higher prices in the short term if it means reviving American manufacturing and fairer trade in the long term. But others are beginning to raise concerns that the president has abandoned his key campaign pledge to bring down costs. 

Trump was already on shaky ground on economic issues before the latest tariff moves. An NBC News poll in March found a majority of voters disapproved of his handling of the economy, and a plurality (46%) said they were “not at all satisfied” with how Trump is battling inflation.

So how long will Americans give Trump to bring prices down? And how will they react if prices go up as a result of his tariffs?

We’ll delve into the latest on Trump’s tariffs on “Meet the Press” this Sunday with Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Ray Dalio, founder and chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund.

More on Trump's tariffs:

• Consumer sentiment tumbles in April as inflation fears spike, University of Michigan survey shows, by CNBC’s Jeff Cox
• Dow jumps 600 points Friday, capping one of the most volatile weeks on Wall Street ever, by CNBC’s Hakyung Kim and Pia Singh
• Why Trump’s attempt to pressure Beijing with ever-rising tariffs could backfire, by Peter Guo and Mithil Aggarwal
• Follow live updates →

✉️ Mailbag: How imposing — and eliminating — tariffs can affect prices

Thanks to everyone who emailed us this week! One reader wrote to ask if we could expect to see prices that rise to due to tariffs come back down if those tariffs are reduced or eliminated in the future:

“Once prices go up, what are the chances prices will revert back to their pre-tariff costs? I can’t imagine companies not just adding the adjusted cost back to their bottom line. They may reduce prices some, but not all.”

To answer that, we turned to senior policy reporter Shannon Pettypiece, who has been covering the ins and outs of Trump’s tariff plans. Here’s her response: 

As this reader and others might have noticed, prices for most of the things we buy rarely go down. Generally, that’s a good thing — having a healthy rate of inflation of around 2% is usually a sign of a growing economy, while widespread drops in prices can be a sign the economy is struggling. 

But when it comes to tariffs, there isn’t a lot of good data on what happens to prices once a tariff is lifted, because it’s extremely rare for a tariff to be removed once it’s put in place. Trump’s tariffs from his first term, for example, were continued by President Joe Biden, and some companies are paying tariffs that were put in place decades ago.

A lot of factors beyond tariffs go into setting a price paid by consumers, like the costs of labor, transportation and raw materials. That also makes it difficult to determine how much prices will go up from tariffs. If tariffs cause the U.S. economy to slow down, that could mean lower oil prices and depressed wages, which could offset some of the higher costs from the tariffs.

So it’s necessary to take the entire economic picture when looking at prices. Even if a tariff were removed from an item, if other costs are going higher, there might not be a noticeable change to the price once the tariff is removed. As the reader notes, companies can also try to keep the added revenue from the higher prices to increase their profit margin — but that’s only if the consumer is willing or able to pay the higher price or they aren’t undercut by a competitor.

4 lanes in the (very early) shadow 2028 Democratic primary

We’re not even 100 days into Trump’s tenure, but key Democratic leaders are already scoping out different potential paths back to power in a few years.

As Ben Kamisar and Alexandra Marquez note, the party is at a crossroads, with its image slipping to historic lows after the November election and lacking significant power in Washington to push back against Trump and the GOP. 

It’s against that backdrop that Democrats are making early, yet important, moves about how to position themselves as the party looks toward a wide-open 2028 presidential race. 

We grouped them into four categories. 

Grab a slice of conservatives’ pie: California Gov. Gavin Newsom; Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania; Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. 

Resist Trump at all costs: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker; Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut; Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey; Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. 

Head down and govern: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer; Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro; Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.

Charting their own paths: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear; Rep. Ro Khanna of California; former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Read more →

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Faith Wardwell.

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