Tariffs are making California more expensive – San Bernardino Sun

When it comes to the economy, people not politicians should be the ones driving it. Government should step aside, cut red tape and let the free market unleash growth, opportunity and innovation. From Silicon Valley to the Central Valley, from our bustling ports to our family-run small businesses, California’s economy thrives because we trade and innovate. 

That’s why it’s frustrating to see tariffs making a comeback. President Trump’s sweeping tariff plan would be troubling under any circumstance, but especially when prices are still climbing, and Californians are seeking relief. 

Tariffs are taxes, and here in California, we’ll be paying a big chunk of the bill.

A recent study from the Yale Budget Lab found that President Trump’s proposed tariffs could cost the average American household around $3,800 a year. That’s not an abstract policy number – that’s real money that people need to buy everyday goods. And in California, where everything is already more expensive, those added costs hit even harder.

California’s economy is particularly exposed under new tariffs because our economy depends on global trade. 

California exports more than $183 billion worth of goods every year – everything from almonds grown in the Central Valley to technology built in the Bay Area. 

When trade tensions rise, we feel it around the kitchen table. Retaliatory tariffs from our trading partners hurt our farmers, squeeze our logistics networks and hike costs for manufacturers. In the end, those costs reach the consumer when they’re forced to pay more at the checkout stand. 

Ask any Golden State farmer who used to sell to China before the 2018 tariffs. They’ll tell you how quickly a market they spent years building vanished overnight when China hit back with a 55 percent tariff. It cost our agricultural industry hundreds of millions of dollars, and the damage still lingers.

Tariffs haven’t delivered what was promised. Manufacturing growth has slowed, and inflation is still stubborn. We haven’t seen the job growth or supply chain independence we were told to expect.

Instead, what we have is a blunt tool that hits middle-class Californians the hardest, especially working families and small businesses. The Yale report made it clear – the impact isn’t just big, it’s unfair. Lower- and middle-income households bear the brunt of these tariffs, paying more for basic needs like food for their families and clothing for their children.

Both sides of the aisle agree our trade relationship with China is broken. China has been engaging in unfair practices, and those are serious issues that must be addressed. But there are better ways to respond. We need to work with our allies abroad, enforce trade rules and invest in American innovation and workers.

Fortunately, we have leaders who get it. Congressman David Valadao, who represents California’s 22nd District, recently pushed back on the administration’s unilateral tariff decisions when discussing the bipartisan Trade Review Act, saying, “I’ve always been someone who supports giving power back to the Congress, the way our Founding Fathers originally designed … and this is one of those powers that belongs in the Congress, and we should be looking at that in, I think, a very serious manner.”