According to Bloomberg News, the latest research released by Goldman Sachs Group on October 12 shows that the transmission of tariffs to U.S. consumer prices has entered an accelerated period, which not only adds uncertainty to the U.S. Treasury bond market, but also means that U.S. consumers are becoming the ultimate main bearer of tariff costs. Goldman Sachs economists Elsie Peng and David Merrikel calculated in the report that as of June this year, in addition to U.S. companies still bearing 64% of tariff costs to maintain market share, consumers bear 22%; If the latest round of tariffs continues the previous pattern, the burden on consumers will soar to 55% by the end of the year, and the burden on companies will drop to 22%.

Goldman Sachs Group's report also pointed out that the U.S. government has disrupted the global trade order through a series of tariffs and trade restrictions. Although U.S. government officials insist that trading partners will bear the cost of tariffs, the reality is that U.S. importers need to pay tariffs to U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bureau, and when companies pass on the cost of tariffs, consumers will face higher commodity prices.

Some domestic producers in the United States use tariff barriers to wait for opportunities to raise prices, further exacerbating inflationary pressures. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis published an article saying that pricing data shows that tariffs are having a gradual impact and prices faced by American consumers are still rising. The "tariff tracker" of Harvard Business School's Pricing Laboratory monitors the prices of more than 350,000 items sold by large U.S. retailers every day. Research shows that the average price increase of imported goods affected by tariffs is about 5%, and the prices of domestic goods in the United States are also higher than the regular level. Domestic goods in the United States also have a significant "follow-up effect", particularly among categories with import dependence exceeding 50%.

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis showed that, as the Federal Reserve's core inflation indicator, the U.S. core personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index rose 2.9% year-on-year in August, the highest level since February. Goldman Sachs Group predicts that the index will rise to 3% by the end of the year, driven by tariffs. Since the beginning of this year, tariffs have pushed up the price of core personal consumption expenditure by 0.44%. The cost pressure on upstream production is even more significant. Data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in August showed that the producer price index (PPI) rose by 0.9% month-on-month in July, the largest increase since June 2022; the year-on-year increase reached 3.3%, much higher than the 2.3% in June and the market expectation of 2.6%, the highest level since February this year. CNN pointed out that the sharp rise in producer costs suggests that higher prices will soon be passed on to consumers.

The Yale University Budget Laboratory recently released a study showing that the new tariffs have pushed the average effective tariff rate of the United States to 18.3%, the highest level since 1934.The laboratory estimates that these tariffs are expected to increase the average additional expenditure of U.S. households by $2,400 this year, with clothing and footwear prices likely to rise by 38% and 40% respectively in the short term.

According to the analysis, the negative effects of the US tariff policy are continuing to emerge. Chris Rupki, chief economist of research firm FWDBonds, said: "Producers are suffering from inflation, and it is only a matter of time before tariff costs are passed on to already tired consumers." Laura Feldkamp, a professor at Columbia University in the United States, believes that U.S. trade protectionism not only directly increases the burden of domestic people's lives, pushes up inflation, but also disrupts the stability of global supply chains.

(This newspaper, Washington, October 14)