Recently while traveling I bought a new short-sleeve shirt at a small shop. Stickered at around $22 and they dropped the price to about $18. It looked a little delicate to toss in the washer and so I dropped it off at an area dry cleaners I've used for years after getting back home. The price today when I picked it up?
$9.85. 1 short-sleeve everyday-wear shirt. I don't have much stuff dry cleaned, but can't remember ever paying anything over $6 or $7 for a single shirt.
I wondered if Trump's policies have somehow contributed to the steep hike. Several sources mentioned the tariffs on imported steel which dry cleaning equipment uses. Dunno. Hate to disparage such a fine man. But if this kind of price rise ripples through the entire economy we'll be in a heap of trouble. What's next? A $5 banana? And oh, check-out coffee prices. I just paid over $20 a pound for a couple bags of Starbucks whole bean on ebay. Unlike a lot of the coffee sold there, this one has a freshness date a couple months farther out. So, I expected to pay a bit more for it. But $20+ a pound?
Trump’s tariffs and the effect on the US textile care industry “In addition to impacting textiles,” continued Ricci, “the tariffs will impact our equipment manufacturers, chemical suppliers and other essential products and services that require components not available in the US. These increased costs lead directly to higher prices for consumers and reduced profit margins for businesses along with other factors have also created a very high level of uncertainty that is just bad for business.""For example, the US does not make steel anymore so it has to come from somewhere that will now incur tariffs making the manufacture of laundry and drycleaning machinery much more expensive. The impact on textile care businesses is worrying. Even at 10% the tariffs up the cost of operating competitively."
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