How have costs changed since the tariffs? The price of tomatoes may answer this question

Trade policies spill over into household budgets, and tomatoes may be an indicator of how quickly prices will rise.

Tariffs were a primary focus of the Trump administration at the beginning of the year. Reciprocal customs duties on dozens of countries have been in effect for more than three months. There are also several other trade duties on specific goods imported into the United States in effect as well. Inflation reports indicate that prices rose during the year, and experts attribute this at least in part to tariffs.

Since mid-April. Investopedia It tracks the prices of selected household goods each week to measure changes in prices since the tariffs were announced.

Although you can’t track inflation by tracking a single item, and prices in stores may change for reasons other than tariffs, this tracker shows how the cost of a commonly purchased item has changed since the implementation of trade duties. Since prices may vary depending on regions, Investopedia It is measuring changes in prices, rather than precise pricing.

Specifically, the cost of tomatoes varies across retailers from week to week, with prices fluctuating up and down. Even with the fluctuations, current prices for grape tomatoes are higher than they were at the time Investopedia Their tracking first began on April 23.

As of November 19, Walmart’s grape tomatoes are 4% more expensive than when they were Investopedia Tracking started for the first time. At Target, tomatoes are 8% more expensive, and tomatoes at Amazon are 18% more expensive than they were when we first started tracking prices.

What definitions affect tomatoes?

The main trade tariff on imported tomatoes is a 17.09% tariff on most tomatoes coming from Mexico, which took effect on July 14. The Commerce Department announced the tariff in April, saying that Mexican imports were being priced unfairly, and that the “action will allow U.S. tomato growers to compete fairly in the marketplace.”

Mexico supplies about 70% of all tomatoes in the United States, according to the Florida Tomato Exchange.

President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs officially went into effect on August 7, but have less impact on tomatoes. These country-specific tariffs do not affect goods that comply with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which includes tomatoes. The United States gets about 12% of its tomato imports from Canada, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

However, reciprocal tariffs affected other countries, such as New Zealand, Moldova, Ecuador and Japan, whose tariff rates ranged from 15% to 25%. In 2024, these countries imported approximately $173,917 worth of tomatoes, representing approximately 0.005% of the total tomatoes imported by the United States.

Last week, Trump announced that reciprocal tariffs on some agricultural products, including tomatoes, would be lifted. However, tariffs on Mexican tomatoes will likely remain in place, because these trade duties were not part of Trump’s comprehensive reciprocal tariffs.