President Donald Trump made several promises to the American people before taking office. Now, his most prominent critics are calling him out for not fulfilling them.
On September 19, 2024, then-Republican nominee for President Donald Trump reportedly made a promise to the American public regarding grocery prices.
“Groceries, cars – everything. We’re going to get the prices down,” he said.
In December, TIME published an interview with Trump. During their conversation, Trump said his previous promise would be “very hard” to fulfill.
“I don’t think so. Look, they got them up,” he said in reference to the previous administration. “I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”
By the time Trump was sworn into office, Americans were less than confident he would fulfill his campaign promise. A survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found only 20% of Americans were “extremely” or “very” confident the then-President-Elect would be able to lower the cost of groceries.
Now, Democrats are looking to hold Trump accountable for his campaign promises. On Sunday, January 26, 2025, a group of Democrats led by Senator Elizabeth Warren published a letter questioning why Trump has not fulfilled his promise of lowering groceries upon taking office.
“We write to ask about your Administration’s plan to lower food prices for American families. Americans, in the first days of your new presidency, are facing egg shortages amidst an avian flu outbreak and still-high prices at the grocery store. During your campaign, you repeatedly promised you would lower food prices ‘immediately’ if elected president. But during your first week of office you have instead focused on mass deportations and pardoning January 6 attackers, including those who assaulted Capitol police officers,” the letter reads.
“Your sole action on costs was an executive order that contained only the barest mention of food prices, and not a single specific policy to reduce them. You have tools you can use to lower grocery costs and crack down on corporate profiteering, and we write to ask if you will commit to using those tools to make good on your promises to the American people.”
However, Trump is not the only member of the executive branch who has been pressed about the cost of groceries in the United States. During a conversation with Face The Nation‘s Margaret Brennan, JD Vance was also questioned about Trump’s campaign pledge to lower grocery prices.
“Donald Trump has already taken multiple executive actions that are going to lower energy prices, and I do believe that means consumers are going to see lower prices at the pump and at the grocery store,” Vance said. “But it’s going to take a little bit of time. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
Grocery prices are expected to rise by 2.2%, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). In 2023, prices rose by a similar increment of 2.4%. More prominently, there was an 8.4% increase in retail egg prices. With that said, prices could continue to rise in the future if the Trump administration imposes sweeping tariffs on imported goods.
“If we’re talking about across the board a set of tariffs on all goods being imported to the U.S. from any country,” University of New Haven Associate Professor Patrick Gourley told NBC Connecticut. “Then we would expect to see a kind of significant rise in all food prices.”
