Trump Kicks Off His Economic Tour in Pennsylvania and Defends Tariffs

President Donald Trump is standing by his tariffs, at least in theory.

Under the banner “Lower Prices, Bigger Paychecks,” Trump kicked off the first of a series of speeches to promote his economic message in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, as polls indicate the country is increasingly concerned about the rising cost of living.

“They always have a hoax,” Trump told the crowd, referring to criticism from Democrats that his policies drove up prices. “The new word is ‘affordability.'”

“Democrats are like, ‘prices are too high.’ Yeah, they’re too high because they cause them to be too high,” Trump added. “But now they’re coming down.”

Later, he said, “I can’t say affordability is a hoax because I agree the prices were too high. So I can’t go to call it a hoax because they’ll misconstrue that.”

Trump, during the 90-minute speech, also reiterated that his favorite word is “tariff” and credited his policies for bringing in “hundreds of billions of dollars,” presumably for the government in tariff revenue.

“You can give up certain products,” Trump said at one point. “You could give up pencils. Because under the China policy, you know, every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two, you know. They don’t need that many.”

Despite standing by his tariff policies, Trump has, in reality, rolled back many of his earlier tariffs, especially ones enacted on April 2.

Tariffs are still higher than they have been in many decades, but the original 25% tariff on every import from Mexico and Canada was walked back to exclude all items covered in the USMCA trade agreement, which includes most imports from the two neighbors. Tariffs on imports from China, once more than 100%, have been reduced to a baseline tariff of 10%, which applies to all other countries.

On top of that, in an attempt to address the price of groceries, Trump also modified and removed tariffs on a range of food products in November, such as beef, coffee, bananas, and tomatoes.

Of the remaining tariffs, evidence points to an impact on the price of consumer goods.

“Our analysis suggests that tariff measures are already exerting measurable upward pressure on consumer prices,” according to a report published in October by the Federal Reserve of St. Louis that looked at data from January to August of this year. “The rise in prices beginning in early 2025 coincides closely with tariff developments, and our model-based regressions confirm that these effects are statistically and economically significant.”

“At the same time, the pass-through remains partial; only a portion of the model-predicted effect has materialized so far,” the report added. “This could reflect delays in price adjustments, competitive pressure limiting firms’ ability to raise prices, or expectations that the tariffs may prove temporary.”

Trump’s speech comes as consumer sentiment remains low. According to the University of Michigan’s survey of consumers, sentiment dropped to 51 points in November, which is the second-lowest score the index has ever recorded since 1952, narrowly topped by a score of 50 in June 2022.

Earlier on Monday, in an interview with Politico, Trump said that he would give his economy a grade of “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.”

Some Democrats have centered their pre-2026 midterm messaging on affordability, and several have explicitly blamed rising costs on Trump’s tariff and trade policies. Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor-elect, with whom Trump had a meeting, also won while running primarily on making the city more affordable.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.