White House Press Secretary Katherine Leavitt confirmed on March 20, 2024, that the Trump administration will impose reciprocal tariffs on foreign nations starting April 2, following President Trump’s March decision to levy 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada and raise tariffs on Chinese goods to 20%.
After providing a brief 30-day reprieve in February to allow for US companies to adjust their supply chains in preparation for the tariffs, Trump informed reporters that the target nations had no more room to negotiate.
“Everyone needs to buckle up,” Trump said. “It’s time for everyone to get on board… there is no room left for Mexico or for Canada [to negotiate].”
Unlike his past term, where Trump sought to use tariffs primarily as a bargaining chip to negotiate more favorable trade agreements, many of his advisors now believe that he sees tariffs as an effective tax that other nations will begrudgingly pay in order to continue doing business with the United States.
This “higher for longer” tariff policy is almost guaranteed to raise the prices for almost every essential good needed here at Staples for academic success, as many of the most essential items, ranging from Apple Macbooks to Mechanical pencils to Sharpies are all manufactured outside of the United States in at least one of the target nations.
For instance, Newell Brands, the maker of essential school supplies including notebook paper, Expo markers and Elmer’s glue, all of which are manufactured in China, announced that it would raise prices across the board.
“For my family, we’ve been buying a lot of things, including school supplies like pencils and papers, before Trump puts the April tariffs in,” Matt Darien ’25 said. “These are things that don’t really expire but are almost guaranteed to increase in price over the next year.”
This practice of stockpiling goods before tariffs is also unlikely to be rare. A survey conducted by UChicago found that 40% of US consumers said they were likely to stockpile goods in the first half of the year and that a third would set aside money in preparation for price hikes.
“When I participated in the Staples investment team this year, we spent a lot of time analyzing the potential impact of Trump’s tariffs,” Reia Bhardwaj ’26 said. “The range of goods that his tariffs will impact [was] even greater than I thought…almost every major country is a target.”
