Scott Horsley

In fact, you wouldn't really know there was a pandemic effect if you just looked at the last 10 or 12 years of test scores.

There's been just a steady kind of decline.

Consumer prices in April were up 3.8 percent from a year ago.

That's the biggest annual increase since May of 2023.

Prices jumped six-tenths of a percent in the last month alone.

Higher energy prices, triggered by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, accounted for about 40 percent of that overall monthly increase.

Gasoline prices have jumped about a buck and a half since the war began, and diesel prices are even higher.

That's also starting to show up in the price of other goods and services.

The price of plane tickets, for example, is up more than 20 percent from a year ago, as airlines struggle with soaring jet fuel prices.

Higher trucking costs may have also contributed to a sharp monthly jump in grocery prices.

Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

The White House says the president wants reciprocity and fairness.

And to be sure, lots of countries around the world are concerned that China is distorting markets by producing too much and dumping the excess elsewhere.

Trump also wants China to buy a lot more stuff from the United States.

China has made commitments to buy more in the past and then often fallen short of those promises.

U.S.

farmers in particular have paid a price when China started buying soybeans from Brazil instead, for example.

Consumer prices in April were up 3.8 percent from a year ago.

That's the biggest annual increase since May of 2023.

Prices jumped six-tenths of a percent in the last month alone.