A few weeks ago, Dane began stocking up on “paper products”, “cases of paper towels, toilet paper”, “piddle-pads” for their shih-tzu, and his wife upgraded from an iPhone 8 to 14.
The 73-year-old in South Carolina said the purchases – which were made to get ahead of Donald Trump’s trade policies – reminded him of the early weeks of the Covid pandemic, when he scrambled to buy masks, gloves and toilet paper.
“It’s scary,” Dane said. “Prices are going to go up because of tariffs … It’s going to be messy.”
While campaigning last year, Trump constantly touted his love of tariffs. But it was not until his so-called “liberation day” on 2 April – where the president announced sweeping duties on incoming goods, punishing competitors, allies and small and developing countries alike – that he spooked global financial markets and provoked fears of spiralling inflation and stagnant growth.
Amid a US government bond sell-off, the president paused his most eye-watering tariffs for 90 days, apart from China, whose goods are set to be hit with a 145% levy.
Hundreds of Americans got in touch with the Guardian to share how the uncertainty is affecting their consumption habits.
Dane, who is retired, worked as an entrepreneur with his wife most of his career before later becoming an English teacher. He said he was a Republican in the 1980s but is fearful about how the US is “not going the right way” under Trump, and is unhappy with his “dystopian” policies towards global allies, the economy, education, scientific research and more.
Currently, Dane is on a trip to Paris and plans to bring home consumer goods potentially hit by 10% tariffs on European Union imports.
“We’ll probably be getting tea, bringing back some cheese, some butter,” he said. “I would love to bring back eggs but that would be a disaster. I’d have scrambled eggs in my suitcase.”
Amid tariff uncertainty, Heather, a 61-year-old college professor in Texas, said she and her husband can mostly weather food cost fluctuations, but brought forward the purchase of a new car “in anticipation of price hikes”.
She said they owned a 14-year-old Mini Cooper, which ran on gas, that they planned to replace with a hybrid vehicle at some point. They decided to replace their car now to avoid potential inflation – and reduce expenditure on gas.
“The economic instability of the Trump administration certainly gives one pause,” she said. “It’s just so much instability, chaos and [the] unknown.”
It’s a similar story for Stefanie, a 56-year-old educator and former tech worker in Nevada, who bought a Toyota Tacoma to replace her old Jeep as well as converting some investments into cash.
Stefanie began strategizing about being more resilient to tariffs as soon as Trump was elected.
“The one thing I learned in the first administration is to believe him: he says bizarre things, and then he does bizarre things,” she said.
She’s cutting back on subscriptions and future travel plans, while stockpiling kitchen staples such as rice, cooking oils, vinegar and flour and replacing worn-out clothes including shoes and jeans, “before inflation hits”.
“The supply chain is so globalized that tariffs really hit everything,” Stefanie said.
But for Ishaan*, a 51-year-old engineer in Texas, the economic picture means he is abstaining from major purchases.
“Everyone I know has started tightening their belts,” he said. “I am cutting out unnecessary expenses, cancelled my gym membership, focusing on savings.”
The focus for Ishaan, who fears higher prices and an economic slowdown, is to build up his savings in cash. He feels “scared to invest in any stocks or bonds right now” amid market volatility.
Likewise for Jonathan*, a 70-year-old in New Jersey, the financial fallout from Trump’s trade wars means he has been forced to rule out planned purchases and strip consumption back to the essentials.
Jonathan said his individual retirement account (IRA) was initially “decimated” – although it ticked up slightly after Trump paused his tariffs on Wednesday. He said it was currently down about 15%.
That means cancelling plans to redo the carpet in his house and replace two old televisions, Jonathan said. “In short, we’ll buy only necessities and pay bills until this stupidity ends.”
Russ a 35-year-old physicist in New Mexico, said the Trump administration’s policies were “causing me to think about what kinds of spending behavior I could have done without this whole time”.
He has an eight-year-old phone and nine-year-old MacBook computer that still work fine, which he will not be replacing. The prospect of runaway price rises for consumer electronics, often from China, have led him to reconsider: “Do I really need this, or do I just want this?
“I see these things as being as much toys as necessities,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just go back to a dumbphone or something like that – I fantasize sometimes about not getting all these notifications all the time, like the phones we had back in 2005. But maybe that’s a Luddite fantasy.”
Russ said that he was already boycotting Amazon and Target – companies that many feel have aligned themselves with Trump’s agenda such as rolling back their own DEI schemes. He’s trying to shop more at local, independent shops rather than “everything stores”, which he notes is more expensive and time consuming but ultimately worth it.
“As an American citizen and registered voter, nobody really cares what you think until November of every other year, you feel kind of voiceless,” he said. “You think, well, if dollars are the only tools we have any more, then damn it, I’m going to cast those votes and allocate my spending accordingly.”
Likewise, small business owner Christine* said the disruption could cause a wider re-evaluation of US consumer habits.
Amid the uncertainty, Christine, 41, stocked up on supplies for her Miami acupuncture business for two years, and bought her son’s fifth birthday present – a bike – early for July. But she said she had already noticed less demand for her work.
More broadly, the prospect of inflationary tariffs is accelerating Christine’s reconsideration of how much “stuff” she needs. She’s recently attended “these lovely parties” where friends bring unwanted clothes and they “switch it all around” rather than buying fast fashion.
“I really resent being drafted into this mad trade war,” Christine said, “but if there is a silver lining, maybe it’s that at least some people like me will question their unsustainable capitalistic practices.”
*Some names have been changed.
