Will Trump tariffs be inflationary

Five charts to start your day

Okay, so let's have a rant about Trump. Why not? This is going to be a disaster. Trump's tariff threats cause a surge in inflation within the US economy. The US will be effectively importing inflation and that will directly hurt US consumers. The price of items will increase dramatically, especially for previously cheap manufactured goods that have allowed Americans to live quite comfortably for decades. Okay, rant over. Now the question is, is this true?

Truth is a complex topic. It's not black-and-white, even though it is often presented as such by politicians. In reality, the complexity of the universe means that truth can be contradicted and proved false, while remaining true at the same time. It's something that, in data science, you have to battle with continually, especially if you work with data visualisation – but that's another topic, and I won't have time to explain it in this newsletter.