Trump’s tariff rates remain unchanged due to rising energy prices, former Biden official says

The Trump administration is holding firm on its elevated tariff rates, and the reason has less to do with trade strategy than with the price at the pump. Peter Harrell, a former senior director for international economics in the Biden White House, says rising energy costs driven by the US-Iran conflict have effectively locked in the current tariff regime. With Brent crude pushing toward $100 per barrel and gasoline prices climbing above $4.10 per gallon across much of the country, the administration appears to view any tariff adjustment as a secondary concern. The logic, as Harrell frames it, is straightforward: when energy costs are already squeezing the economy, reopening the tariff playbook introduces variables nobody in the White House wants to manage simultaneously. What the tariffs actually look like The tariffs in question cover imports from more than 80 countries, with rates set at roughly 10-12.5%. They took effect around July 23-24, 2026, replacing earlier trade measures that were struck down after legal challenges made their way through the courts. Harrell, now a visiting scholar at Georgetown and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, h...