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President Donald Trump is preparing to increase his domestic travel to promote his administration’s efforts to reduce the cost of living, according to two people familiar with the plans, as a senior aide pledged significant actions to lower prices on items such as coffee and bananas.
Trump has placed heightened emphasis on affordability following a series of losses for Republican candidates in last week’s elections, while continuing to argue that any rise in prices stems from policies enacted by former President Joe Biden rather than from his own broad tariffs, Reuters reported.
Democratic victories in New Jersey, New York and Virginia — driven in part by cost-of-living concerns — underscored voter unease over persistent inflation, which economists say has been partly fueled by the high import tariffs implemented by Trump. That said, the vast majority of those races were in very blue states and cities.
Still, more than half of the categories tracked in the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index were increasing at an annualized rate above 3% as of the September report, according to an analysis by Apollo Global Management Chief Economist Torsten Slok, Reuters reported.
“Cleaning up Joe Biden’s inflation and economic disaster has been a top focus for President Trump since Day One, when he signed an array of executive orders to unleash American energy and slash costly regulations,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai, adding that the administration is habitually focused on bring prices down for all consumer goods including energy, food, and utilities.
“The Trump administration will continue to implement and emphasize these and other economic policies that are cutting costs, raising real wages, and securing trillions in investments to make and hire in America,” he added, per Reuters.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday on Fox News’ Fox and Friends that “substantial announcements” are expected in the coming days aimed at lowering the prices of products such as coffee, bananas and other goods not grown in the United States.
He did not provide specifics but said the measures would reduce prices “very quickly,” adding that Americans should begin to feel more optimistic about the economy in the first half of 2026.
Coffee prices fell sharply on Wednesday amid indications that the United States is preparing to cut certain import tariffs, a move that could ease supply pressures in the world’s largest coffee-consuming market.
Regarding tariffs and trade, Trump on Tuesday said his administration would move to lower the high tariffs imposed on India, offering the clearest indication yet of progress toward resolving a trade dispute that has strained bilateral relations in recent months, The Economic Times reported.
He justified the planned reduction by arguing that India faces steep tariffs because of its oil trade with Russia, and again claimed that New Delhi has “stopped” purchasing Russian oil. Trump added that his administration intends to scale back the tariffs on India and said the United States is close to reaching a “fair deal” with New Delhi.
“The tariffs are very high on India due to Russian oil, and they (India) have stopped doing the Russian oil very substantially,” Trump told reporters in the White House when asked about trade negotiations with India. “We’re gonna be bringing tariffs down…at some point, we’ll bring them down.”
Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on Indian goods over New Delhi’s decision to continue purchasing Russian oil. Trump has previously claimed on several occasions that India planned to halt its purchases of Russian crude oil.
Meanwhile, New Delhi and Washington continue to negotiate a proposed bilateral trade agreement, with the first phase expected to be completed soon. The pact seeks to more than double annual trade between the two countries to $500 billion by 2030, up from the current $191 billion, The Economic Times noted.
