Canada bears the brunt of the crackdown, slapped with a punishing 35% tariff on energy and industrial exports. Mexico, meanwhile, finds itself under continued economic pressure, with elevated tariffs extended for an additional 90 days, deepening a cross-border standoff over immigration enforcement.
Amid mounting volatility in global markets and wavering trust among key allies, critics argue that the long-term fallout of Trump’s tariff offensive won’t simply be measured in price hikes or disrupted supply chains. It may erode the very foundations of cooperative trade architecture that has underpinned international relations for decades, replacing predictability with personalist leverage and transactional brinkmanship.
I went to the store the other day with a short list: coffee, eggs, maybe some fruit, nothing extravagant. I wasn’t expecting sticker shock. But as I walked the aisles, I found myself staring a little longer at price tags, doing the mental math, second-guessing the brand I usually grab. The coffee I’ve bought for years? Thirty percent higher. A dozen eggs? Almost double what I paid a year ago. Even basic pantry items had quietly crept up. I paused at the checkout line, feeling a real disconnect. The numbers on the screen didn’t match what I’d grown used to, or what inflation reports claim is "cooling."
It’s not just inflation as a statistic. It’s inflation as an experience, a quiet shift that isn’t always captured by the data. The government might say consumer prices are stabilizing, but if you're actually walking into stores and buying groceries, it doesn’t feel that way. Tariffs on imports, supply chain disruptions, energy costs, and global instability don’t show up as line items on a receipt, but they’re all embedded in the price of a mango or a bag of rice.