Americans are still paying more for shoes, luggage and hats after Biden left Trump’s tariffs in place

In 2018, then-president Donald Trump put new tariffs on a variety of Chinese-made goods, including baseball caps, luggage and shoes – and Americans have been paying the duties ever since.

In 2018, then-President Donald Trump put new tariffs on a variety of Chinese-made goods, including baseball caps, luggage and shoes – and Americans have been paying the price ever since. For example, a suitcase that was $100 before Trump imposed the tariffs now goes for about $160, and a carry-on that was $425 is now $700, said Tiffany Zarfas Williams, who owns the Luggage Shop of Lubbock in Texas. As a small, independent retailer, she had no choice but to raise prices on consumers to keep up with what she was charged by the brand name distributors, which paid the tariffs on the imported goods. “It’s a real challenge having to pass those kinds of price increases to the consumer,” she said. Tariffs aren’t the only reason prices went up over the last five years, but Zarfas Williams said she hoped President Joe Biden would lift the duties – which he previously criticized – to help alleviate some of the upward pressure on prices. “Trump doesn’t get the basics,” Biden said in a post on X in June 2019. “He thinks tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs.”