A large majority of Republicans think that President-elect Donald Trump will lower grocery costs, according to a new poll. Trump himself said that would be “very hard.”
Three-quarters of Republicans said grocery costs would go down under Trump, according to a new CBS News/YouGov poll. On the other hand, 68% of Democrats expected prices to rise. Independent voters were less sure, with 39% saying they expected an increase, 35% expecting a decrease, and 26% figuring the costs won’t change at all. The poll has a sample size of 2,244 American adults. The margin of error is 2.4%.
Despite campaigning on lowering the cost of groceries, Trump seemed to backtrack in his Time magazine Person of the Year interview.
“It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard,” he said.
Trump is correct. There’s not a lot a president can do to directly affect grocery costs in the short term, according to Politico. The types of policies a president can enact are typically long-term solutions. One of Trump’s plans to lower costs across the board is specifically to work on the amount of fuel available, lowering energy costs. And while fuel is expensive, and the food industry requires lots of transportation, it’s just one factor, Politico reports.
But one of Trump’s favorite policies—increasing tariffs—is more likely to raise prices. Economist Wendy Edelberg, PhD, suggested that his proposed tariffs could boost food costs by 10-20%, according to Glamour. Tariffs also have historically cost people jobs. During Trump’s first term, his import tariffs cost 245,000 U.S. jobs, according to a 2021 study by the US-China Business Council.
Something that could help, however, is a regulation on price-fixing. In August, a lawsuit against data analytics and consulting firm Agri Stats alleged the company worked with meat processors to keep prices high, according to Food & Wine. The company is accused of sharing price and cost information among competitors so they can all agree on a higher-than-necessary price to keep profits high.
Like the meat industry, which is controlled by just four companies, according to Politico, the number of grocery chains is shrinking. A lack of competition can lead to situations like Kroger admitting to raising prices on dairy products further than necessary during the pandemic, according to Bloomberg. However, antitrust legislation and controls on prices are unpopular with lawmakers generally, especially with pro-business Republicans.
Daniel Scheitrum, a Cal Poly professor of agribusiness, told Politico that acting on this would be an effective way of lowering prices.
“This anti-competitive activity, it’s not just textbook discussion. This is actually happening and being litigated in our food system. If the federal government can rein in anti-competitive behavior, supply restrictions, price-fixing, that could bring down food prices in the U.S.,” he said.
But experts expect the new Trump administration to pull back on antitrust regulations outside of the tech industry, according to The Economist. And despite the effect lowering fuel costs could have on food prices, legal analysts at Stinson expect oil and gas industries to face less in the way of antitrust efforts.
Or, in other words, analysts across industries seem to think it’s unlikely the Trump administration will be able to lower grocery costs—directly or otherwise.
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