Trump’s tariffs could squeeze US factories and boost costs by up to 4.5%, new analysis finds

A new analysis suggests Donald Trump's tariffs could increase factory costs by 2% to 4.5%

As Donald Trump prepares to announce new tariff increases, the costs of his policies are starting to come into focus for a domestic manufacturing sector that depends on global supply chains, with a new analysis suggesting factory costs could increase by roughly 2% to 4.5%.

There's going to be a cash squeeze for a lot of these firms," said Chris Bangert-Drowns, the researcher at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth who conducted the analysis. Those seemingly small changes at factories with slim profit margins, Bangert-Drowns said, could lead to stagnation of wages, if not layoffs and closures of plants" if the costs are untenable.