Schools and parents are anxiously awaiting the impacts of President Trump\u2019s tariff war, fearing the worst for a spike in the cost of food and school supplies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The situation is fluid, with the president putting a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for most countries but keeping a 10 percent flat rate for most foreign products for now. On imports from China, the trade war has already escalated to 145 percent tariffs. <\/p>\n
The unpredictability war is putting school officials and parents in a tough spot as\u00a0the market fluctuates and economic uncertainty looms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely will impact school districts and states in a number of different ways,\u201d said Karl Rectanus, a former educator and administrator, pointing to everything from the cost of food for students to upgrades for technology that most schools bought five years ago during the pandemic. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump, who has long argued the global markets treat the U.S. “very unfairly,” began the process of instituting tariffs hours after taking office in January, signing an executive order to set 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico. <\/p>\n
In the coming weeks, he announced and paused a slew of other tariffs, including on America’s closest trading partners. While the markets have not responded kindly, the White House insists the tariffs are bringing recalcitrant nations to the bargaining table<\/a>. <\/p>\n The struggle for schools is whether to jump and buy things now if they believe the economic situation will get worse or wait in the hopes it gets better. <\/p>\n \u201cLet’s take, for example, technology budgets. You know, should [schools] be refreshing? Should we buy quickly? Should we wait? What is the tariff? Is it going to be 145 percent or is it going to be paused? Impossible to tell. So, there’s a lot of confusion and lack of clarity on what they should do,\u201d Rectanus said. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNinety percent of school districts’ budgets go to capital expenditures, that is, schools’ transportation and educator salaries. The other 10 percent is where they have to pay for curriculum and everything else: food bills, content, materials, etc. And so, they will look to offset costs in those other areas,\u201d he added. \u00a0<\/p>\n