Pricing for any item is set by one thing: what people are willing to pay for it.
If a business raised prices because of tariffs, and consumers paid the higher price, that was a successful test that consumers are willing to pay that higher price for the item. Once that’s been established, the business has little incentive to lower prices once the tariffs go away. Prices only go down if competition with other companies pushes them down, but every player in a market has little reason to do so when they’re enjoying the higher profits.
Many businesses added specific surcharges to final sales to offset the tariffs they paid. While they have no legal obligation to refund those surcharges they imposed, it would be straightforward to do so and it would be the right thing to do.
It's not a matter of "surprised", rather it's outraged over the lack of accountability. The administration acted illegally, which caused harm to consumers. It's reasonable to expect consumers to be made whole from the results of those illegal actions - the same as if corpos were found to be illegally colluding to raise prices without Grump spearheading it.
(although honestly I wouldn't be surprised if such a push ended up with the profligate spendthrift in chief sending more paltry "stimulus" checks with his ugly-ass signature on it right before midterms)
This would be a valid concern if businesses got $1 in additional tariff costs and passed on $1 in price increases. This categorically did not happen, and businesses absorbed the vast majority of the blow through both stockpiling and taking the bullet.
Prime example is Mercedes. The RRP for post-tariff Mercedes vehicles was identical to the pre-tariff RRP.
Food prices also rose significantly less than the tariff increases.
Importantly, journalists in media, classically inept at any economic analysis, implied that 10% tariff = 10% RRP rise. They never corrected themselves, nor for the economists who falsely claimed the economy would collapse.
When you pay $10 for a widget at the store, the cost price of that widget is likely $2. A 10% additional tariff (if passed along fully, it wasn't) would mean the widget goes from $10.00 to $10.20.
>Zero businesses passed on the additional costs onto the consumer? None?
That wasn't the claim made. OP said:
>and businesses absorbed the vast majority of the blow through both stockpiling and taking the bullet.
Which so far as I can tell, is approximately correct, even if the "vast majority" part is suspect. A goldman sacs from last year estimated consumers will pay 55% of the tariffs by end of 2025. However that only includes the tariffs paid, whereas OP also included "stockpiling".
OP also says "This would be a valid concern if..." so, no need to defend these poor massive businesses who also screwed us with shrinkflation for five years.
> Importantly, journalists in media, classically inept at any economic analysis, implied that 10% tariff = 10% RRP rise. They never corrected themselves, nor for the economists who falsely claimed the economy would collapse.
This is irrelevant to the discussion in the article, which is specifically about refunding a portion of whatever amount a company receives back from the government to customers.
It's also pretty vague without any examples of what specifically deserves corrections.
> Prime example is Mercedes. The RRP for post-tariff Mercedes vehicles was identical to the pre-tariff RRP.
If your prime example is a luxury car with a ton of margin built in, you need a better example. Tariffed commodities absolutely had the costs passed on, and far more of those are sold than high margin luxury products where manufacturers had the option to compress margins vs passing on the cost.
Also, there are lots of products that go through multiple middle men, the tariffs were included and marked up at every stage. Very few things go from manufacturer to retailer with no middlemen.
I’d guess about 1/4 to 1/3rd of tariff costs were absorbed and the rest passed along to the eventual end consumer.
I suspect you work nowhere near the money at work, the closer you get to the money, the more you realize exactly what is built into a price.
> Importantly, journalists in media, classically inept at any economic analysis, implied that 10% tariff = 10% RRP rise. They never corrected themselves, nor for the economists who falsely claimed the economy would collapse.
Pricing for any item is set by one thing: what people are willing to pay for it.
If a business raised prices because of tariffs, and consumers paid the higher price, that was a successful test that consumers are willing to pay that higher price for the item. Once that’s been established, the business has little incentive to lower prices once the tariffs go away. Prices only go down if competition with other companies pushes them down, but every player in a market has little reason to do so when they’re enjoying the higher profits.
Also true of any other refund a business might get for any other expense the business was overcharged for. Not sure why anyone is surprised.
Many businesses added specific surcharges to final sales to offset the tariffs they paid. While they have no legal obligation to refund those surcharges they imposed, it would be straightforward to do so and it would be the right thing to do.
Depending on the relationship it’s totally normal to say hey we want to adjust what you builded us.
Not every business the business relationship works that way, but it’s not unusual.
As for a surprise goes, I don’t know about surprised, but certainly it’s worth noting that after a massive illegal tax …. voters get no justice.
It's not a matter of "surprised", rather it's outraged over the lack of accountability. The administration acted illegally, which caused harm to consumers. It's reasonable to expect consumers to be made whole from the results of those illegal actions - the same as if corpos were found to be illegally colluding to raise prices without Grump spearheading it.
(although honestly I wouldn't be surprised if such a push ended up with the profligate spendthrift in chief sending more paltry "stimulus" checks with his ugly-ass signature on it right before midterms)
Free gift link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/24/us/politics/companies-con...
This would be a valid concern if businesses got $1 in additional tariff costs and passed on $1 in price increases. This categorically did not happen, and businesses absorbed the vast majority of the blow through both stockpiling and taking the bullet.
Prime example is Mercedes. The RRP for post-tariff Mercedes vehicles was identical to the pre-tariff RRP.
Food prices also rose significantly less than the tariff increases.
Importantly, journalists in media, classically inept at any economic analysis, implied that 10% tariff = 10% RRP rise. They never corrected themselves, nor for the economists who falsely claimed the economy would collapse.
When you pay $10 for a widget at the store, the cost price of that widget is likely $2. A 10% additional tariff (if passed along fully, it wasn't) would mean the widget goes from $10.00 to $10.20.
Zero businesses passed on the additional costs onto the consumer? None?
>Zero businesses passed on the additional costs onto the consumer? None?
That wasn't the claim made. OP said:
>and businesses absorbed the vast majority of the blow through both stockpiling and taking the bullet.
Which so far as I can tell, is approximately correct, even if the "vast majority" part is suspect. A goldman sacs from last year estimated consumers will pay 55% of the tariffs by end of 2025. However that only includes the tariffs paid, whereas OP also included "stockpiling".
https://abcnews.com/Business/new-tariffs-effect-us-consumers...
OP also says "This would be a valid concern if..." so, no need to defend these poor massive businesses who also screwed us with shrinkflation for five years.
Yeah, that was quite a claim. I didn't realize that businesses were were so altruistic?
It's also pretty vague without any examples of what specifically deserves corrections.
> Prime example is Mercedes. The RRP for post-tariff Mercedes vehicles was identical to the pre-tariff RRP.
If your prime example is a luxury car with a ton of margin built in, you need a better example. Tariffed commodities absolutely had the costs passed on, and far more of those are sold than high margin luxury products where manufacturers had the option to compress margins vs passing on the cost.
Also, there are lots of products that go through multiple middle men, the tariffs were included and marked up at every stage. Very few things go from manufacturer to retailer with no middlemen.
I’d guess about 1/4 to 1/3rd of tariff costs were absorbed and the rest passed along to the eventual end consumer.
I suspect you work nowhere near the money at work, the closer you get to the money, the more you realize exactly what is built into a price.
> Importantly, journalists in media, classically inept at any economic analysis, implied that 10% tariff = 10% RRP rise. They never corrected themselves, nor for the economists who falsely claimed the economy would collapse.
Lovely strawman.
> journalists in media, classically inept at any economic analysis
It’s just the NYT. Let’s not demean the rest of the media for the faults of the NYT.