The Affordability President: White House deftly zeroes in on grocery prices

President Donald Trump took action over the weekend to immediately address affordability for Americans as the holidays arrive and his administration focuses on the economy

Opinion-editorial by Summer Lane | November 17, 2025

With a stroke of his pen, President Donald Trump on Friday rolled back tariffs on key agricultural products coming into the United States as his administration focuses intensely this holiday season on bringing grocery prices back under control.

This comes amid a deft pivot toward addressing affordability from the White House, as Americans are keener than ever to see tangible and dramatic price reductions after suffering for years beneath the brunt of Biden-sparked economic woes.

The president’s EO on Friday rolled back reciprocal tariffs on items like cocoa, spices, coffee, tea, oranges, beef, and fertilizers – key items that Americans have no doubt been feeling a squeeze on at the grocery store.

This action, the president said, was part of a broader push toward affordability, which he notes was much improved under his administration when compared to Joe Biden’s leadership just one year ago.

While speaking to reporters this weekend, the president hinted that further price reductions were to come, too. “We’re going to have some little price reductions and, in some cases, we’re going to have some pretty good ones,” he said, as reported by LindellTV.

“A Thanksgiving meal and surroundings are 25 percent lower than it was under the Biden administration,” he added.

Are prices really getting cheaper? Luckily for the American people, under President Trump’s leadership, things are looking up.

The tariff rollback and the rate of rising prices

The president’s move to roll back some of his reciprocal tariffs is an attempt to assuage, short term, grocery prices that became egregiously high under the Biden administration.

And while prices are still, overall, considerably higher than they were several years ago, the Trump administration has managed to slow down the rate of increase in prices by a wide margin.

In 2022, under Biden, food prices increased by 9.9 percent, for example – worse than the rapid food price increase of 1979. Add to this the jagged price increase made worse by a massive past expansion of the SNAP benefits program under Biden (linked to another 15 percent price spike in 2023), and it’s no wonder that the cost of living has spiked nearly to the moon.

To the Trump administration’s credit, the rate of increase in energy and food has slowed down considerably, demonstrating a step in the right direction. The USDA predicts that all food prices will rise 3 percent in 2026 – a marked improvement from Biden’s supercharged inflationary disaster.

While some people may be longing for an immediate fix, the economy is showing signs of recovery.

Dropping Thanksgiving prices

The president has championed cheaper turkey prices this year as Americans prepare to gather around the dining room table for a Thanksgiving feast.

He cited a 25 percent drop in Thanksgiving food, referring specifically to Walmart’s holiday haul report, which reflects the lowest turkey price the mega-retailer has offered since 2019. Other grocery stores like Aldi’s have also seen a significant price reduction on their holiday offerings, per the White House, providing a glimmer of hope for Americans.

The administration has spent a considerable amount of time focused on foreign policy issues over the past few months, with foreign trips to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Now, it looks like the Trump White House is turning its focus to affordability, an issue that many Americans see as the most important problem facing the country, because it has affected nearly everyone in a profound way.

Ipsos’ Consumer Tracker, for example, found that 69 percent of Americans are “spending more to cook at home and less on experiences like travel or dining out in the past six months.” Their data also found that those between the ages of 18 to 54 were the most likely to pinch their pennies in this area.

The majority of Americans, based on Ipsos’ data, also agree that after paying their bills every month, “they do not have money left for the things they want.”

Based on research like this, it is timely and wise for the Trump administration to continue to dig in hard on affordability, as it is a cornerstone issue for most voters. It is also one of President Trump’s strongest areas of governance, so Americans should expect big wins in the future on the economy.

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