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HomeAI & Machine LearningTaxes are they still raising rates? What I've Seen Watching 11 Important...

Taxes are they still raising rates? What I’ve Seen Watching 11 Important Shifts

Trump’s tariffs could lead to rate increases that are more imminent than ever. James Martin/CNET

Over the past few months, I’ve been keeping a regular watch on a number of well-known products to see if Donald Trump’s broad tariff plans have already affected their prices. Given that the president just said 90-day pause on his highest tariffs– set to end in just a week’s time on July 9– won’t be extended, price hikes are then looking as good as they always have.

Prices for these 11 products have remained constant for the most part in the last few weeks, with the exception of a sizable raise for Xbox One, Xbox One, and a sizable increase for a&nbsp, affordable 4K TV. A few have even gone on sale for brief intervals, but as of now, they’ve all generally reverted back to normal– though you should assume the sale prices to gain as Prime Day approaches in July, a good time total to make payments that might get more expensive later.

Despite everything, the full-scale effects of these transfer fees are also a possibility, especially given Trump’s recent claims that China’s price rates will soon return to 55 %. The Trump presidency has also been working to remove a business court decision, which found that Trump has no authority to set tariffs as he has been– a walk then being argued before an appeals court. We’ll see how that ultimately turns out, but for the time being, it’s still possible that the president’s tariff policies will cause price increases. &nbsp,

Tariff Tracker Index by CNET

Above, you can check out a chart with the average price of the 11 products included in this piece over the course of 2025. This will help you understand how much money is changing in general and how much money is fluctuating. Further down, you’ll be able to check out charts for each individual product being tracked. &nbsp,

We’ll be updating this article regularly as prices change. Be sure to check back every so often because it’s all about making sense of things. For more, check out CNET’s guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get expert tips about how to prepare for a recession.

Watch this: Should You Wait or Buy Right Now? Our Experts Weigh In on Tariffs

09:42

Methodology

We are constantly updating the article and the relevant charts to reflect any changes, and we’re checking prices every day. The following charts show a single bullet point for each month, with the most recent one labeled” Now” and showing the current price. For the past few months, we’ve chosen what was the most prevalent price for each item in a given month. &nbsp,

The historical price-tracker tool Keepa was used to most often get the price information used in these graphs from Amazon. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple’s official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering of the iPhone 16. The prices for the Xbox 360 Series X were sourced from Best Buy using the PriceTracker tool. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we’ll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause.

The 11 products we’re monitoring

Mostly what we’re tracking in this article are electronic devices and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like&nbsp, iPhones&nbsp, and affordable 4K TVs– along with a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn’t produced in the US to any significant degree. &nbsp,

The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Other goods, such as printer ink or coffee beans, are intended to represent items that consumers might purchase more frequently. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have received CNET’s approval or have been included in one of our top lists.

Below, we’ll get into more about each individual product, and stick around till the end for a rundown of some other products worth noting.

iPhone 16

The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US, so this was a clear priority for price tracking. Given its popularity and susceptibility to import taxes due to its overseas production, primarily in China, the iPhone has also become a major topic of conversation about tariffs. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone could cost as much as$ 3,500.

Something to note about this graph: The price listed is the one you’ll see if you buy your phone through a major carrier. You’ll be charged an additional$ 30 if you purchase an iPhone 16 directly from Apple or Best Buy without having a carrier involved, so in some places the list price is listed as$ 830.

Apple’s been taking a few steps to protect its prices in the face of these tariffs, flying in bulk shipments of product before they took effect and planning to move production for the US market from China to India. A shocking 97 % of iPhones imported from the latter nation, from March through May, were bound for the US, according to a recent Reuters report. This latter move drew the anger of Trump again, threatening the company with a 25 % tariff if they didn’t move production to the US, an idea CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly shot down in the past. The future of that action appears to be uncertain as a result of Trump’s decision to exempt electronic devices from tariffs, including smartphones.

Apple’s flagship device is still the top-selling smartphone globally, as of Q1 of this year, although new research from the firm Counterpoint suggests that tariff uncertainty will cause the brand’s growth to stall a bit throughout the rest of 2025.

AA batteries from Duracell

A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you’ll be needing to restock. The Duracell AAs we’re tracking are some of the top-selling batteries on Amazon.

Samsung DU7200 TV

Televisions are some of the most well-known tech products available, even if they’re only a few dollars apiece. Along with smartphones, they’re also some of the most well-known ones. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET’s pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Samsung is a South Korean company, which may have some degree of tariff resistance, in contrast to many other tech products that have strong supply lines in China. This model was most recently listed on Amazon at$ 419.55, up from the$ 400 price tag it’s hovered around for most of the year.

Xbox 360 Series X

Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft’s Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes — the company cited “market conditions” along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox 360 Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories also were affected and the company also said that “certain” games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80.

Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet increased the price of its handheld-console hybrid, and it has stressed that the upcoming Switch 2’s$ 450 price tag has not yet been inflated as a result of tariff increases. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US.

AirPods Pro 2

The latest iteration of Apple’s wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. A quick look at the Amazon sales charts on the internet reveals how much the company dominates all headphone sales, much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there. For most of the year, they’ve hovered around$ 199, which is a notable savings on its list price of$ 249.

Ink for the HP 962 CMY printer is available.

This HP printer ink includes cyan, magenta and yellow all in one product and recently saw its price jump from around$ 72– where it stayed for most of 2025– to$ 80, which is around its highest price over the last five years. We will be monitoring this to see if this is a gradual change or a gradual rise.

This product replaced Overture PLA Filament for 3D printers in this piece, but we’re still tracking that item.

Anker 30-watt power bank with 10 000 mAh.

Anker’s accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will&nbsp, get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This particular item has also been listed among CNET’s top picks for the best portable chargers. &nbsp,

Bose TV speaker

Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. The Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options available, especially considering it comes from a brand as well-known as Bose, even though it isn’t the biggest or best option in the space. &nbsp,

Electric toothbrushes like the Oral-B Pro 1000

They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I am aware of how much my dentist will need. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET’s overall choice for the best electric toothbrush&nbsp, for 2025.

Chromebook from Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i

Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump’s tariffs.

Starbucks Ground Coffee in a 28-ounce bag

Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity– I’m certainly drinking too much of it these days– and because it’s uniquely susceptible to Trump’s tariff agenda. Known as the” Coffee Belt,” a tropical region largely outside the United States, limits the cultivation of coffee beans to a certain distance from the equator.

Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data&nbsp, from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season– little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, there hasn’t been as much production of Hawaiian coffee in the last few years.

All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs.

Other goods

As mentioned, we occasionally swap out products with different ones that undergo notable price shifts. We’re still keeping an eye on some things that aren’t featured above, though:

  • Nintendo Switch: The baseline handheld-console hybrid has held steady around $299 most places — including Amazon — since it released in 2017. Whether that price will be affected by tariffs or the release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox 360 Series X.
  • For the material needed to run 3D printers, Amazon has a popular choice: Overture PLA 3D printer filament. It has held steady around$ 15 on Amazon all year. The HP 962 printer ink was used to replace this item above.

Here are some products we also wanted to single out that haven’t been featured with a graph yet:

    Razer Blade 18 ( 2025 ), 5070 Ti edition ): The most recent addition to Razer’s largest gaming laptop saw a$ 300 price increase, with the base model now selling for$ 3,500 less than the$ 3,200 price tag, which was previously announced in February. While Razer has stayed mum about the reasoning, it did previously suspend direct sales to the US as Trump’s tariff plans were ramping up in April.

  • The price of the premium version of Asus’s Steam Deck competitor handheld gaming PC recently increased from$ 799 to$ 899, which coincides with the release of the company’s upcoming Xbox-branded Ally handhelds.
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