Trump Rebuts Goldman’s Prediction of Tariff Costs Shifting to US Consumers

Trump said the Wall Street bank had been wrong to predict that new tariffs would hurt U.S. consumers.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon delivers remarks at the Invest America Roundtable hosted by President Donald Trump in the State Dinning room at the White House on June 9, 2025. Win McNamee/Getty Images

President Donald Trump on Aug. 12 criticized Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, suggesting he either hire a new economist or step down as head of the Wall Street bank.

The criticism came after Goldman’s economists warned that American consumers might bear a growing share of the costs from tariffs imposed during the Trump administration’s trade battles, which Trump said have brought “trillions of dollars” in revenue into the federal treasury.

“Tariffs have not caused Inflation, or any other problems for America, other than massive amounts of CASH pouring into our Treasury’s coffers,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

The Treasury reported on July 29 that it collected $28 billion in customs duties in July, around $1 billion more than in June and more than triple the amount recorded in the same month of 2024.

Meanwhile, inflation held steady in July for the second consecutive month, with consumer prices rising slightly less than expected. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the consumer price index rose by 0.2 percent in July from the prior month and by 2.7 percent year over year, compared with the Dow Jones forecasts of 0.2 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively.

According to Trump, “for the most part,” foreign companies and governments, rather than American consumers, have been absorbing the cost of his tariffs.

“But David Solomon and Goldman Sachs refuse to give credit where credit is due,” Trump wrote.

While Trump did not name the economist he wants Solomon to replace, his comments appear to be aimed at recent projections from the team led by Jan Hatzius, Goldman’s chief economist since 2011.

In an Aug. 11 research note seen by The Epoch Times, Hatzius’s team said that the full effects of Trump’s tariffs have yet to be felt by American consumers.

“Our estimates imply that U.S. consumers had absorbed 22 percent of tariff costs through June but that their share will likely rise to 67 percent by October if the later tariffs have the same impact over time as the earliest tariffs,” Goldman’s economists wrote.

“This also implies that U.S. businesses have absorbed more than half of the tariff costs so far but that their share would fall to less than 10 percent. This net impact on U.S. businesses likely masks that some companies have absorbed a larger share of tariff costs, while some domestic producers shielded from import competition have raised their own prices and benefited.”

Goldman’s economists further forecast that tariffs will push core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation to 3.2 percent year over year in December, up from 2.6 percent in December 2024. The PCE index tracks changes in prices for goods and services purchased by Americans and is a favored inflation indicator for the Federal Reserve.

Neither Solomon nor Hatzius has responded publicly to Trump’s criticism. A spokesperson for Goldman declined to comment.