Tariffs Still Aren’t Raising Prices, Putin Gets Sanctioned, and Democrats Shattered by Chandeliers

Welcome back to Friday! This is the Breitbart Business Digest weekly wrap, where we review the economic news of the past seven days while practicing our best ballroom dance moves.

Since the last time we wrapped, the “lapse in appropriations” completed its third week of lapsation and is now headed into its fourth week with no signs of a pending unlapse. This was not, however, allowed to stand in the way of the Department of Labor reporting on consumer prices. The Trump administration imposed new sanctions meant to punish Putin for boring Trump with lessons about Russian history. Trump also broke off trade talks with Canada to punish Ontario for deceptively editing a speech by Ronald Reagan. Trump’s critics decided that American democracy is threatened by plans to build a ballroom in the East Wing of the White House.

Economic data nerds rejoiced Friday when we finally received our first official government economic release in weeks: the Labor Department’s consumer price index. The report arrived thanks to a force even more powerful in Washington than immoveable partisan gridlock—the unstoppable power of Social Security benefits. The government uses third-quarter inflation to calculate the annual cost-of-living adjustment, so the September CPI was deemed an essential government function that could not be delayed any further.

Inflation in September was milder than expected, once again humiliating the tariff fearmongers who insisted import duties would push up prices. Core CPI rose 0.2 percent—slower than analysts anticipated and down from the prior month. Annualized six-month core inflation excluding shelter, the measure Jerome Powell has said he watches closely, is running at 2.8 percent. Since Trump took office, prices are up just 1.5 percent, an annualized rate of 2.6 percent.

Compared with a year ago, CPI is up three percent on both the headline and core measures. That prompted several legacy media outlets to declare that inflation was at its highest rate since January—misleadingly implying it’s getting worse instead of better.

“Consumer prices rose 3% in September compared to a year ago, extending a monthslong uptick that has sent inflation to its highest level since January,” ABC News reported with shameless disdain for accuracy. “An acceleration of price increases over recent months has coincided with a flurry of tariffs issued by President Donald Trump.”

This misrepresents both the data and the timeline. There has been no “acceleration” in recent months. The headline index barely rose 0.1 percent in July, then 0.3 percent in both August and September. Core prices rose 0.2 percent in July, 0.3 percent in August, and 0.2 percent in September. The year-over-year uptick mostly reflects inflation from before Trump took office—those 0.3-to-0.4 percent monthly gains from September through January. Since Trump’s inauguration, inflation has run between 0.2 and 0.3 percent, marking a clear deceleration.

As for ABC’s “flurry of tariffs,” (can you order that at Dairy Queen?) the claim is nonsense. The biggest contributor to September’s headline inflation was higher gasoline prices—an untariffed import. Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs specifically exempted oil, gas, and refined energy products.

The real story in the September CPI is the continuing absence of evidence that tariffs are raising consumer prices, much less driving inflation overall. Clothing prices are down 0.1 percent from a year ago. Toy prices are flat, up just 0.2 percent. Computer prices are down, smartphone prices have crashed 14.9 percent, and televisions are down 6.7 percent. Household furnishings are up three percent—matching overall inflation—while major appliances are down 0.6 percent.