Pandemic déjà vu: Fears of higher tariffs are leading some to stockpile goods

It’s not March 2020, but it sure feels a lot like it for Herschel Wilson.

It’s not March 2020, but it sure feels a lot like it for Herschel Wilson. Wilson started building up a small stockpile of essential goods for his three pets and family of five based in Tacoma, Washington, in August, after Donald Trump had been named the Republican presidential nominee, with an economic agenda that called for higher tariffs. Once Trump won the election, “that changed everything again, and I started to stockpile pretty much everything,” Wilson told CNN. That includes canned goods, bottled water and, yes, lots and lots of rolls of toilet paper. So far, he estimates he’s spent $300 on stockpiling goods since the election. Going forward, he said he plans to spend $100 extra each month on top of regular grocery spending. Unlike the onset of the pandemic, when Wilson was also drawn to stockpiling, this time around his chief concern isn’t necessarily that he won’t be able to find these goods. Rather, it’s his belief that they’ll cost him a lot more if President-elect Trump follows through with the tariff threats he’s made. Among those is a 10% to 20% tariff on all goods imported into the US, a 60% or more tariff on goods from China and a 25% across-the-board tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada. Many trade experts and economists are skeptical that Trump will impose all the tariffs he’s pledged to and, instead, could use them as a negotiating tactic. That could mean that certain goods end up being excluded from tariffs, as was the case with tariffs Trump imposed during his first term. There’s also the possibility that Trump backs off on imposing new tariffs on some nations’ imports altogether.