President-elect Donald Trump, who recently told an interviewer, “I won on groceries,” said in a Time magazine transcript released on Thursday, “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up.” Meanwhile, a Purdue University poll found that consumers have lowered their expectations for food inflation.
Participants in the monthly Consumer Food Insights poll said they expect food prices to rise 2.5 percent in the coming year — down by 0.5 points from October and the lowest food inflation expectation rate since polling began in January 2022. Respondents to the poll, conducted after the Nov. 5 election, also lowered their estimate of food inflation for the past 12 months to 5.2 percent. Purdue said it would dig into the data to see if political affiliation played a role in the change in sentiment. Food inflation was 2.6 percent over the past year and is forecast to be lower in 2025.
During the Time interview, Trump was asked if he would fail as president if grocery prices did not come down. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up.” Trump said his plans to increase energy production would result in lower prices.
The economy and inflation were major factors in the presidential election, and Trump said prices, including grocery prices, would go down if he won. On Meet the Press on NBC-TV on Dec. 8, he said, “I won on groceries. … We’re going to bring those prices down.”