Democrats have challenged Donald Trump to live up to his campaign pledge to lower food prices in a blistering letter that tries to reverse the whirlwind narrative of his first week back in the White House by reminding voters of the agenda he ran on.
After Trump dictated his agenda with an unprecedented flurry of executive orders on a multitude of themes – including immigration, DEI programs and gender-identity rights, the letter from the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and Jim McGovern, a House member for the same state, criticises him for ignoring the issue he attributed his election victory to: groceries.
“A majority of people who voted for you shared that inflation and the economy was the most important for them in the election,” states the letter, which is signed by 19 of the authors’ fellow congressional Democrats.
“Instead of working to lower their grocery bills however, you have used the first week of your administration on attempting to end birthright citizenship, pardoning individuals who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, and renaming a mountain.”
The letter says Trump’s priorities since his inauguration have departed from those he focused on during his campaign, in which he consistently lambasted the Biden administration over inflation, which polls showed was a salient concern with voters.
“During your campaign, you repeatedly promised you would lower food prices ‘immediately’ if elected president,” it reads.
“You repeatedly promised to make food more affordable for Americans. During your nomination acceptance speech at the Republican national convention you vowed to ‘drive down prices and make America affordable again … starting on day one.”
The letter appeared to be an attempt to slow Trump’s early momentum, while reminding the American public that his victory over Kamala Harris had been fought and won on “the price of eggs”.
On one occasion, Trump even stood before a backdrop of supermarket items at a press event at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, that was designed to highlight the damaging impact of high grocery bills on voters’ finances – although he quickly veered off topic and talked about other things.
After the election, Trump told NBC’s flagship Meet the Press program: “I won on the border, I won on groceries.”
In the weeks following, however, he attempted to dampen down expectations that food prices could be reduced, telling Time: “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. Very hard.”
The Democrats say they are “ready to work with” Trump if he is still committed to cutting grocery prices but say it would mean to taking action against some of the country’s biggest corporate food names, a segment of the US economy the party often depicts as in league with the president.
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“To make food more affordable, you should look to the dominant food and grocery companies that have made record profits on the backs of working families who have had to pay higher prices,” they write.
The letter cites an admission in a 2023 court hearing by an executive of the grocery chain Kroge that the company had raised the price of eggs and milk significantly beyond inflation following the Covid-19 pandemic. It warns that the current avian flu outbreak could give producers and chain stores an opportunity to further limit supply and raise prices.
It advocates a range of measures to lower costs, including action by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Agriculture to discourage major retailers and brands from shutting out smaller suppliers, and encouraging the Department of Justice to prosecute actors in the food and farming sectors who engage in price-fixing.
The White House responded by linking Warren to what it called the “failed economic policies” of the Biden administration, which “skyrocketed inflation”.
“President Trump immediately took action on day one to unleash American energy, which will drive down costs for families across the country,” Anna Kelly, the White House deputy press secretary, told NBC.
English (US)