American consumers are starting to feel the real-world impact of President Trump’s trade policies, as prices for Chinese-made goods on Amazon.com are rising faster than the overall inflation rate. A new analysis conducted for Reuters by the analytics firm DataWeave reveals the trend, directly linking the price hikes to the administration’s tariffs.
The study examined over 1,400 products on Amazon and found their median price climbed by 2.6% between January and mid-June. The price increases accelerated sharply in May and June, coinciding with the onset of tariffs that began to exert pressure on the supply chain.
The hardest-hit categories include everyday items such as home goods, office supplies, and electronics, for which China is a dominant global supplier. For instance, the price of one popular electric kettle jumped from $49.99 to over $73.
While major retailers like Walmart and Macy’s have warned of price hikes, many were initially hesitant to pass on costs to consumers amid weakening demand. However, experts believe that sellers can no longer absorb the financial blow. An analyst from DataWeave noted that sellers are now making their “first broad-based price step-up” to adjust to the higher costs.
Amazon pushed back, stating that a small sample of products doesn’t reflect the hundreds of millions of items on its site. Despite this, the data suggests that the economic buffer is gone, and the cost of the trade war is now landing squarely in the shopping carts of American households.
