When Wendy Woloson published an academic book in 2020 about how the accumulation of cheap goods had shaped America, she concluded by asking whether it was even possible to imagine an alternative. What would it mean, she wondered, for a society that derived much of its identity from mass consumption to buy less disposable stuff?
Then came a pandemic that disrupted global trade, followed by a reignition of e-commerce that delivered even cheaper goods. Fast fashion got faster; disposable garments from China arrived with “Do not wash” tags. Online browsing became a daily hunt for bargains just a click away. “We’re nowhere near peak stuff,” lamented the Atlantic in April 2024.
Now, Professor Woloson, a historian at Rutgers University-Camden in New Jersey, is waiting to see what impact the highest U.S. tariffs in a century will have on consumption as prices inevitably rise. “Is this really going to break the fever of our addiction to cheap goods?” she asks.
Why We Wrote This
An era of abundant low-cost imports faces a reckoning – but not necessarily an end – as the Trump tariffs take hold. America’s long pivot from thrift toward consumption is deeply ingrained. So are the economics of global supply chains.
Or, perhaps more likely, will the market adjust in ways that keep prices low and consumption high? Will companies push for more tariff exemptions, such as those already granted to Apple for iPhones made in India, so that imported goods keep showing up?
Many are asking similar questions. Businesses that depend on the voracious American consumer are starting to adjust to a tariff regime that, if it hardens, will upend decades of U.S.-led globalization and manufacturing innovation during which prices fell in real terms.
Take shoes: Average prices rose 10% between 1995 and 2020, while overall prices went up 74%. Apparel prices declined over the same period. Almost all are imports, as are many household goods, from baby strollers and board games to sofas and pet products.
Most major U.S. trading partners are now subject to tariffs of 15% or 20%, rising to 35% for Canada and 50% for India. Imports from China, known as the world’s workshop and a major supplier of everyday items sold in U.S. stores, face tariffs starting at 30% – with threatened rates as high as 145% if a 90-day negotiating period doesn’t go well.
As a result, the average American household could see price rises over the next two years equivalent to $2,400 in annual spending, according to the Yale Budget Lab. So far, price hikes have been modest, partly because retailers stocked up on imported goods before President Donald Trump announced across-the-board tariffs in April, and inventories are still being sold. Inflation held steady in July, the Labor Department said earlier this month.
But prices of import-heavy goods rose faster than energy and groceries, reflecting the higher cost of tariffed goods.
“When retailers are emboldened enough or see no more [financial] space to absorb additional cost, they will gradually pass on price increases to consumers,” says Sheng Lu, a professor of apparel and fashion studies at the University of Delaware.
Online sellers are also being squeezed. The U.S. has ended an exemption – often referred to as the de minimis exemption – for small packages worth $800 or less that has allowed Shein, Temu and other Asia-based platforms to ship cheap goods to U.S. consumers. Analysts say the duties and extra paperwork now required for U.S.-bound packages have already led to an abrupt slowdown.
The Trump administration insists that higher tariffs are essential to reduce the U.S. trade deficit and stimulate investment in domestic manufacturing. It says trade deals signed with the European Union and other trading partners will lower barriers for U.S. exporters and create jobs.
“The damage from decades of harmful policy won’t be fixed overnight, and the process may not always be smooth, but the situation demands strong and resolute action to strengthen the U.S. industrial base,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer wrote in The New York Times.
Mr. Trump has conceded that tariffs will likely push up prices, saying that children might only “have two dolls instead of 30” because they “cost a couple of bucks more than they normally would.” But the president has repeatedly claimed, contrary to how taxes are actually collected, that tariffs are paid by exporting countries that have been “ripping off” the U.S.
White House officials have argued that a trade policy that prioritizes the availability of consumer goods over manufacturing jobs is misguided and that having more stuff doesn’t compensate for factory shutdowns. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the Economic Club of New York in April that “access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream.”
Who takes the tariff hit
Consumers recognize that tariffs are taking effect and that prices they pay for goods will rise, says Dan Frommer, founder of The New Consumer, a research consultancy.
In a survey the group commissioned in July involving more than 3,000 people, a majority said they believed that “everyday goods” would get more expensive, though self-identified Republicans were more likely than Democrats to minimize the likely increases.
But the idea that tariffs will most directly affect consumers – and not foreign governments or importers – has broadly sunk in, says Mr. Frommer.
“Prices will be passed through, and consumers will either pay the higher prices or not. Companies will stop selling products. Some will go out of business,” he says.
In the New Consumer survey, over half of Republicans who responded said they would pay 25% more for goods to “protect American industries and jobs.” Among Democrats, 26% agreed. Whether any will accept this tradeoff, though, is another matter. In the past, expressions of support for buying sustainably produced products that cost more, for example, hasn’t translated into sales. “People say they’re going to do one thing and do another,” says Mr. Frommer.
A preference for goods made in the U.S. faces practical barriers in many industries. Professor Lu runs an annual survey of executives at fashion brands, retailers, wholesalers, and importers. Unsurprisingly, many are rethinking their global supply chains in Asia because of tariffs, but only 17% of respondents said in July that they planned to source more U.S.-made garments.
Even with high tariffs, says Ken Pucker, former chief operating officer of Timberland, an American footwear and apparel company, the economics of apparel making “continue to be overwhelmingly in favor of low-wage countries.” The U.S. lacks the skilled workforce, supplier network, and machinery to mass produce garments after decades of offshoring, he says.
In 1991, 56% of garments sold in the U.S. were American-made. By 2012, it had fallen to 2.5%, and has stayed relatively flat since. As prices fell in real terms, Americans bought more: Units of apparel sold have doubled over the last two decades, says Professor Pucker, who now teaches business practice at Tufts Fletcher School. As tariffed apparel prices rise, consumers will cut back on purchases. “We’re not talking about food or shelter that are essential for living. Most people have clothes. Most people have shoes,” he says.
Why all the stuff?
But whether higher prices yield a change in mindset, an embrace of austerity that marks a shift from an on-demand era of limitless consumption, is harder to forecast. The idea that all Americans should have the ability to consume, just as they can all participate in civic life, has a long history, says Professor Woloson, author of “Crap. A History of Cheap Stuff in America.”
So, too, the online browsing of stuff has become a leisure activity for millions. “People have been window-shopping since plate glass windows were invented,” she says.
The U.S. used to be a nation of repairers and recyclers of durable products built to last and hand down. “Things had long lives. They had afterlives,” she says.
The Great Depression cratered consumer spending in the 1930s. Then came World War II with rationing and the retooling of factories to supply the war machine. It was patriotic to consume less and reuse more. This attitude flipped soon after the war ended when “people couldn’t wait to fill their homes with all sorts of stuff,” says Professor Woloson.
Much of that stuff ends up discarded in basements or landfills, making room for more stuff. The U.S. has more storage units per capita than any other country.
For younger shoppers in particular, the ideal of a quality object that lasts for years – and could be repaired – has yielded to a disposable notion of fashion and furniture. Higher prices could nudge GenZ consumers to buy fewer, better-made garments, says Professor Lu. “Consumer expectations will change if they have to pay more for the products,” he says.
Factories in China, though, might tack the opposite way: Cut corners to produce cheap goods of lower quality to supply U.S. retailers. This would undercut the Trump administration’s goal of reshoring manufacturing. But it would tamp down inflation and allow consumers with low incomes, including some of Mr. Trump’s supporters, to keep buying imported products.
Will tariffs change consumer patterns?
Even a hike in U.S. tariffs to levels not seen in a century isn’t sufficient in itself to reorder how and what people buy, says Robert Gulotty, a political scientist at the University of Chicago who studies trade. Nor is there a coalition behind Mr. Trump in support of a protectionist policy that promotes more mindful buying. “There hasn’t been a societal consensus, or even within MAGA, for having less consumption,” he says. “The general ethos has not changed.”
Critiques of overconsumption and capitalism are more common on the left. In 2015, Senator Bernie Sanders sounded the alarm during a run to be the Democratic nominee for president. “You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country,” he told CNBC.
The Trump administration, though, has said that consumer goods will still be abundant and affordable under its trade policy. It points to a long list of announcements by U.S. and foreign companies of plans for new or expanded domestic production facilities as proof of concept.
It’s possible to imagine a conservative coalition that prioritizes quality goods made in the U.S., says Professor Gulotty. Surveys suggest that consumers see the shortcomings of cheap goods available on demand. “The support for buying things that are crap is really low,” he says.
But predicting any shift in consumption when import tariffs are still changing, and while connected companies obtain waivers and exemptions, is something of a fool’s errand. Ultimately, what holds true is that access to abundant, affordable goods, once given, is hard to yank away, says Mr. Frommer, the consultant.
“I don’t see Americans deciding now, once they’ve had access to cheap stuff from overseas for decades, that they’re no longer interested in it. I don’t see that happening,” he says.
