Donald Trump has launched his extraordinary pricing assault on the world for only two days in order to rebuild the American economy and to retreat an era of globalization. But already, traders are preparing for recession, and their customers spend less, because they are preparing to increase prices.
“We are going to have to increase our prices and people will not like him,” said Ian Anderson, store manager at Tea and Sympathie, a British grocery store, a restaurant and and and and and and Fish-Fish in the West Village of Manhattan.
Business costs have already increased significant, he noted. But the prices would add to the charge. “We have survived so far because we sell basic products – cakes, scones, hot cross rolls, minced meat pies. If it was only imports, we would find it difficult. ”
Most retailers in the New York district agreed on one thing: the prices announced this week would contribute to the anxieties of the commercial environment that have been improving for years, from the 2008 economic crisis, to the initial wave of prices under the first administration of Trump, to the cocovated pandemic and the high inflation that followed.
But many also said that it was too early to say if Trump’s prices would finally come into force – or if they were only the salvo to open his last shock style. One day earlier, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent encouraged countries around the world to refrain from retalling against the United States.
For companies that depend on rich residents of the city center and visitors to the city, the prices of imported goods had already increased. A 10% levy from British imports, 20% on other European imports and a patchwork of figures on other countries will not help Jennifer Pulidore, owner of Keswick Myers, a family business selling British races for four decades.
“The price of chocolate has increased astronomically,” she said. “Our Easter order was more than £ 7,000 ($ 9,100) compared to last year and we did not increase the quantities roughly,” said Pulidore. The Myer import broker had not yet estimated what the new prices would cost, but Pulidore doubts that customers will accept $ 2 more on a box of $ 16 chocolates.
Customers, she said, already wonder why Shortcake originally marked at £ 2.25 was already $ 6.95. Customers, she said, sometimes call into question the increase. “Well, don’t you consider that we are in New York and we pay New York rent?” Our employees do not work for free. And I have to pay this price, then do it here. ”
Myers famous 40 years of activity in July. Pulidore’s father, Peter Myers, is withdrawn into Cumbria. Pulidore thinks of the future of the “all time” company.
Trump maintains that his plan – also a disruptor – will create American jobs and will trigger a large windfall for the country, despite the warnings of many economists. “I understand,” said Pulidore. “But the implementation – the ways that took place – is simply horrible. I am really worried about a recession, and the people who spend less.”
In a clothing store, a Canadian customer on the way back to Toronto arrived to return goods because he did not want to pay 25% reprisal tasks in Canada. The store proposed to send and label items as gifts, thus avoiding tasks. “It’s frightening,” offered a sales assistant. “Like, the first time, wasn’t it scary enough with Trump?” Why do we have to start again? “
Nearby, getting a picture of being taken in front of the fictitious sex of Carrie Bradshaw and the town house in the city, was Siobhan Copeland and his son, visit in London. The fears of going through customs to JFK one day earlier had proven unfounded.
“I was a little worried, but he just asked me to say my name, so everything was fine,” said Copeland. But she hoped for the pricing conflict, because the United Kingdom seemed to have a “slightly better relationship with the United States than Europe now that we are separated. But who knows what will happen? I think we just have to go with it. It will happen or that is not the case, right?
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At Apothecary Village, on Bleecker Street, owner John Kaliabak said: “We will try to gain the weight at first and see how it goes. If it reaches 50%, we will see. We will not really know if the manufacturers themselves will try to do something and therefore everyone takes a little bit.”
The West Village, of course, is largely a destination store for high -end items – diptych candles and European handbags, therefore not necessarily representative of the overall effects of the radical rates unveiled on Wednesday.
Anderson took the temperature of tea and sympathy customers. “The main feeling is that (Trump) is completely crazy,” he said. During a recent trip to England, “no one wanted to know something else on America except Donald Trump”.
His business is about to experience the complete effects of the prices, because he rebuilt outside the dining hangars authorized by the New York authorities in the coming weeks. Anderson’s entrepreneur already warns before the last tariff cycle that building materials, mainly from China, would put the cost of about $ 80,000.
The bitter irony of the pricing wars, the owner of the Hakim store in Waverly Wines & Spirits on the sixth avenue stressed, is that the prices do not necessarily drop if the prices are lifted. He underlined a bottle of Lagavulin Scotch Whiskey at a price of $ 115.99. Before the 25% prices of Trump in his first term, the bottle was $ 75.
“We have always never recovered,” he said. “Scotch prices have increased, but they never dropped when the prices were removed. Prices therefore increase for a reason, and you remove this reason, and they rarely fall. Same thing with oil and gas. They always use the same tactics. ”
