David Frum

Many of the price increases have been driven very deliberately by

upward by particular policies.

Price of a can of beans is up because the price of the can is up.

And the price of the can is up is because the metals in the can have been hit by tariffs by President Trump.

You put a tax on aluminum and steel, you make cans more expensive.

And if you make a can more expensive, the thing in the can becomes more expensive, whether it's beans, whether it's soda.

Trump threatened to put a 92% tariff on Italian pasta.

He backed away from that threat a little bit in January.

But pasta is still tariffed.

And the Canadian wheat that goes into American-made pasta, that's also tariffed.

So this was done deliberately and on purpose.

And without a lot of regard for the fate of the people on the other end.

This could be dealt with by a different kind of president, by some argument that it's worth it.

Yes, you're all going to have to pay more for food, but that is on the way to my vision of self-sufficiency through tariffs.

We'll seal off the United States economy and the world, and even though you'll all pay more and maybe be a little poorer, at least you'll have less trade with foreigners.

But the Trump people are just systematically incapable of dealing with trade-offs and telling the truth.

And they're especially dishonest about the distributional effect.

When you put food prices up, not everybody pays equally.

The richer you are, the smaller proportion of your income you spend on food.

And the less you notice the price of the grocery.