As the Trump administration performed yet another flip-flop on trade policy, a top economic official has declared that buying cheap products is “not the essence of the American dream.”

According to The Guardian, during an appearance at the Economic Club of New York on March 6, U.S. treasury secretary Scott Bessent conceded there could be what he referred to as “a one-time price adjustment” as a result of Trump’s tariffs. 

His comments came on the same day the White House announced it would include Canadian imports in its one-month pause on tariffs, along with those from Mexico, reversing the implementation, two days earlier, of a 25% tax on all goods coming from two of America’s largest trading partners.

“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,” Bessent said. The American dream was “the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility, economic security,” he added. “For too long, designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this.”

Economic mobility is decreasing in the United States, according to the Gates Foundation. Among people born in the U.S. in 1940, 90% went on to earn more than their parents did. For those born in the 1980s, that figure has dropped to 50%.

Data suggests American consumers favor cheap goods, almost all made outside the U.S., especially in the face of rising prices. In Q1 2024, as online sales rose 7% year over year, the share of cheap goods increased “significantly,” with consumers “trading down to cheaper goods online,” due in part to continued inflation, according to an Adobe Analytics report released May 14, 2024. 

The S&P Global Ratings economics team released a report Feb. 6 that found the potential effects of the stalled tariffs are “overwhelmingly negative,” including slower GDP growth, higher unemployment and inflation, and a stronger U.S. dollar. However, it predicted the effects on the U.S. are smaller than for trading partners.

Several major retail companies have cautioned the tariffs will swiftly lead to higher prices for U.S. consumers. There is also the danger that some retailers will raise prices ahead of the potential costs added by paying duties, either out of caution or to make the most of the uncertainty. Recently, analysis by nonprofit organization Food and Water Watch found that U.S. egg corporations may be using avian flu as an excuse to hike egg prices.

Trump’s chaotic “game of chicken” in a trade war with Mexico and Canada threatens to raise consumer costs, undermine Colorado’s economy and complicate the state’s efforts to close a billion-dollar budget gap, State Treasurer Dave Young said March 6.

Mixed messages about what the Trump trade policy means for ordinary consumers continue to proliferate. After vowing during his re-election campaign to start bringing prices down “on Day One” of his administration, President Donald Trump, acknowledged in a speech to Congress March 4 that there would be “a little disturbance” in prices as a result of the tariffs.

White House senior trade adviser Peter Navarro, also known as Trump’s Tariff Czar, argued that an increase in wages, combined with tax cuts and greater foreign investment in U.S. businesses, would put enough money in American pockets to offset rising prices. “If real wages rise faster than any other types of inflation, people are still better off,” he said during an interview for a podcast by The New York Times February 18.

Earlier in March, Bessent said he was “laser-focused” on high prices in the U.S., and announced the treasury would recruit an “affordability czar” to help address the issue.