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Donald Trump has doubled down on his claims that America’s affordability crunch is a “con job” and a “hoax” perpetuated by Democrats as rising prices become a growing political liability.
The US president has insisted on multiple occasions this week that prices are falling across the country as he looks to push back against voter frustration over the cost of living that is eroding his polling numbers.
“Just about everything is down. You know this whole thing — they use the word affordability — it’s a Democrat hoax. They’re the ones who drove the prices up,” Trump said on Wednesday as he announced a rollback of vehicle emissions standards that he said would lower costs for motorists.
“I think affordability is the greatest con job,” he added. “They look at you and they say affordability. They don’t say anything else.”
Cost of living strains have been thrust into focus in recent local elections, with Democrats winning races in New York, New Jersey and Virginia following campaigns that focused on the issue.
The party also outperformed expectations in a Tennessee special election this week after its candidate highlighted rising prices.
The political headache around affordability marks a stark reversal for Trump, who focused on the high cost of living in last year’s presidential election campaign.
Voter anger over rampant inflation under former president Joe Biden — during whose term it surged as high as 9 per cent — proved a political asset to Trump, who vowed to “immediately bring prices down” if re-elected.
The overall cost of some goods, such as eggs and petrol, has come down since the president retook office. And inflation sat at 3 per cent in September, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics — well below the 2022 peak it reached under Biden in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Inflation fell during the first few months of Trump’s return to office, but fuelled in part by his sweeping tariff regime, it has crept back up and is now higher than it was when Biden left office.
And while the pace of price rises has oscillated, the cumulative increase for most goods has taken its toll on consumers, prompting frustration among poorer Americans in particular as the wealth gap widens across the country.
Trump’s approval rating has slipped from more than 50 per cent when he retook office to 42.4 per cent, according to the latest polling average from Real Clear Politics. Voters repeatedly cite inflation as their primary concern.
The president has responded by claiming on multiple occasions that prices have fallen, including at a campaign event on Monday and during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
“The word affordability is a Democrat scam. They say it and then they go into the next subject and everyone thinks they had lower prices,” he said on Tuesday, adding that his administration had “stopped inflation in its tracks”.
Trump has implemented a host of policies in an effort to curb rising prices. As well as Wednesday’s announcement on fuel standards, he has eased tariffs on some commodities imports, such as beef and coffee, and struck deals with pharmaceutical companies over certain drug prices.
One of his trademark policies to tackle inflation has been to unshackle the US oil and gas industry by loosening regulations. Prices at the pump are down about 6 per cent since his inauguration, according to the US Energy Information Administration.