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Best Buy says Trump’s tariffs could force it to raise prices for consumers
Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said Tuesday that personal electronics could become more expensive if President-elect Donald Trump carries out his threat to slap new tariffs on foreign goods, as large retailers scramble to assess the potential impact of the proposed levies on their business.
The warning came one day after Trump said he would impose a new round of tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China on his first day in office. Before the Nov. 5 election, he had proposed a baseline 10% tariff on all U.S. imports and a 60% tariff on goods shipped from China, arguing the such levies protect domestic manufacturers and encourage American companies to create jobs at home.
Any added costs on U.S. imports from the three counties “will be shared by our customers,” Barry told investors in the company’s Nov. 26 earnings call, noting that “there’s very little in [the] consumer electronics space that is not imported.”
“These are goods that people need, and higher prices are not helpful,” she added.
Price hikes are not guaranteed, Barry cautioned, saying that any impact on the retailer’s costs and prices are contingent on how any new tariffs might be implemented.
“I think it’s going to be a very fluid situation as we continue to work through it,” she said, adding that the company will “make sure we do everything we can to keep prices right for our customers.”
Best Buy could try to partly offset the impact of new tariffs by importing more goods ahead of levies taking effect in 2025, as well as working with vendors to source products from countries other than China, Barry said during the call. Roughly 60% of the goods Best Buy sells are imported from China.
“We are already planning for and working with our vendor partners on next steps,” she said.
Barry’s comments are echoed by other retailers and manufacturers bracing for the impact of higher tariffs on their supply chains. The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) has warned that Trump’s proposed tariffs could lead to higher prices for smartphones, laptops and tablets, connected devices, video game consoles, and computer accessories.
Ed Brzytwa, the CTA’s vice president of international trade, said a number of the trade group’s members are “front-loading 2025 imports into 2024 to get out ahead of the tariffs.”
As far as possible price hikes for consumers, “A number of people are waking up now to the fact that this could be a reality,” he said.
President-elect Donald Trump announced a slew of nominations Tuesday, including international trade attorney Jamieson Greer to be his U.S. trade representative, Kevin Hassett as director of the White House National Economic Council and Vince Haley as director of the Domestic Policy Council.
In announcing Greer’s nomination, Trump said in a statement that Greer was instrumental in his first term in imposing tariffs on China and others and replacing the trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, “therefore making it much better for American Workers.”
Greer previously served as chief of staff to Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s former trade representative who is deeply skeptical of free trade. Greet is currently a partner at the King & Spalding law firm in Washington. He was not immediately available for comment.
If confirmed as trade representative, Greer would be responsible for negotiating directly with foreign governments on trade deals and disputes, as well as memberships in international trade bodies such as the World Trade Organization.
The selection comes after Trump on Monday announced plans to impose sweeping 25% tariffs on all imports from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% tariffs on all imports from China as soon as he is inaugurated in January.
Trump said the tariffs would remain in place “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”
Meanwhile, economist Kevin Hassett was named director of the White House National Economic Council, bringing into Trump’s administration a major advocate for tax cuts.
Trump said in Tuesday’s announcement that Hassett “will play an important role in helping American families recover from the inflation that was unleashed by the Biden Administration” and that together they would “renew and improve” the 2017 tax cuts, many of which are set to expire after 2025.
Hassett, 62, served in the first Trump term as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. He has a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and worked at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute before joining the Trump White House in 2017.
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Fort Pierce, Florida — A collection of 37 gold coins — with a combined value estimated at more than $1 million — have been recovered after they were stolen by salvagers back in 2015 from a famous 18th century shipwreck off Florida’s Treasure Coast, state authorities announced Tuesday. A professional treasure hunter has been charged in connection with the case.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced the recovery in a news release, calling it a “major milestone in a long-standing investigation into the theft and illegal trafficking of these priceless historical artifacts.” As required by state and federal law, the recovered artifacts will be returned to their “rightful custodians,” the agency added.
The suspect, Eric Schmitt, is facing charges of dealing in stolen property.
The coins were aboard the 1715 Spanish Treasure Fleet, a convoy of 11 ships filled with treasure from the New World that were lost to a hurricane in July 1715. The shipwreck gave Florida’s Treasure Coast its name.
Schmitt spoke to “CBS Mornings” in July 2015 after his family’s business, Booty Salvage, helped find the coins while searching in shallow waters off the coast of Fort Pierce.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
“It’s definitely a passion. You gotta want to do this,” Schmitt told CBS News at the time. “…Mostly what we find is garbage on a daily basis — beer cans and lead sinkers and bullets.”
In 2015, members of the Schmitt family, working as contracted salvage operators for a company called “1715 Fleet – Queens Jewels,” uncovered 101 gold coins worth $4.5 million, FWC said. Fifty-one of these coins were reported correctly and adjudicated, but 50 coins were not disclosed and were subsequently stolen. FWC investigators, in collaboration with the FBI, launched an investigation on June 10 for the missing coins.
Evidence linked Schmitt, to the illegal sale of multiple stolen gold coins between 2023 and 2024, FWC said.
Authorities executed multiple search warrants, recovering the stolen coins from private residences, safe deposit boxes and auctions, FWC said. Five stolen coins were reclaimed from a Florida-based auctioneer, who unknowingly purchased them from Schmitt.
Advanced digital forensics identified metadata and geolocation data linking Schmitt to a photograph of the stolen coins taken at the Schmitt family condominium in Fort Pierce, officials said. Furthermore, Schmitt took three of the stolen gold coins and placed them on the ocean floor in 2016 to be found by the new investors of Queens Jewels, the agency said.
The FWC worked with historical preservation experts, including Mel Fisher-Abt. to authenticate and appraise the recovered artifacts.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
Investigators are attempting to recover the remaining 13 stolen coins.
“This case underscores the importance of safeguarding Florida’s rich cultural heritage and holding accountable those who seek to profit from its exploitation,” FWC Investigator Camille Soverel said in a statement.
The gold coins had been minted in Lima, Peru, between 1697 and 1712. Seven days after departing from Havana, Cuba, the 11 ships of the fleet were lost in a hurricane on July 31, 1715, along with at least $400 million worth of gold and jewelry.
One of those, ships, Urca de Lima, opened to the public in September 1987 in Fort Pierce and is protected as part of the Florida Underwater Archaeological Preserves.
For centuries, people have been searching the area for the shipwreck’s treasure.
CBS News reported in 2015 that the state of Florida gets 20% of the profits of treasure hunting off the top. The Schmitt family, as a subcontractor, was to split the bounty 50-50 with Queens Jewels, LLC, the company that owned the rights to the wreckage at the time.
“The more we do this, the bigger the finds we make, so I kind of less believe in luck and more believe in our hard work,” Schmitt told CBS News in 2015.
