Some US consumers stockpile goods ahead of Trump's new tariffs

Siddharth Cavale - Reuters - 08/04
Pushing a shopping cart down the aisle of a Walmart Supercenter, Thomas Jennings, 53, loaded up on juices, condiments and whatever he could think of.
  • Shoppers fear rising prices due to tariffs
  • Tax Foundation estimates tariffs to cost $3.1 trillion over 10 years
  • Some fear repeat of pandemic stockpiling frenzy
SECAUCUS, New Jersey, April 8 (Reuters) - Pushing a shopping cart down the aisle of a Walmart (WMT.N), opens new tab Supercenter, Thomas Jennings, 53, loaded up on juices, condiments and whatever he could think of.
"I'm buying double of whatever - beans, canned goods, flour, you name it," he said. His strategy is to stock up as much as possible before the Trump administration's latest round of import tariffs takes effect on Wednesday.

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Earlier at Costco (COST.O), opens new tab, Jennings bought flour, sugar and water in bulk. "There's a recession coming and I am preparing for the worst," he said.
Like a growing number of U.S. shoppers, Jennings believes retail prices will soon rise because of Trump's tariffs.
The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group, said the new levies, opens new tab will cost Americans $3.1 trillion over the next 10 years, amounting to a roughly $2,100 tax increase per household in 2025 alone.
Even as many shoppers take a wait-and-see approach, some fear that any panic would trigger a stockpiling frenzy that intensifies on expectations of even worse inflation, they told Reuters.
Manish Kapoor, founder of GCG, a supply chain management firm outside Los Angeles, said the tariffs are reawakening fears of empty store shelves encountered during the pandemic, when supply chain disruptions led to product shortages and inflation.
"We saw this during COVID as well, where everybody frantically went and grabbed everything on store shelves, whether they needed i...
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