{"id":11538,"date":"2025-06-17T13:03:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T13:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=11538"},"modified":"2025-06-17T13:03:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T13:03:14","slug":"us-retail-sales-fall-as-americans-turn-cautious-after-spending-early-to-beat-tariffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=11538","title":{"rendered":"US retail sales fall as Americans turn cautious after spending early to beat tariffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \"><span class=\"oyrPY qlwaB AGxeB  \">WASHINGTON &#8212; <\/span>Retail sales fell sharply in May as consumers pulled back after a sharp increase in spending in March to get ahead of President Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping tariffs on nearly all imports. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Sales at retail stores and restaurants dropped 0.9% in May, the Commerce Department <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/retail\/marts\/www\/marts_current.pdf\">said Tuesday<\/a>, after a decline of 0.1% in April. The figure was pulled down by a steep drop in auto sales, after Americans ramped up their car-buying in March to get ahead of Trump\u2019s 25% duty on imported cars and car parts. Excluding autos, sales fell 0.3%. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The sales drop comes after sharp declines in <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/consumer-confidence-economy-spending-tariffs-cd4860a3aff316d90080f96e4487c3c5\">consumer confidence this year<\/a>. Still, inflation has cooled steadily and unemployment remains low, which could fuel steady spending in the coming months, as the economy has remained mostly solid. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Sales dropped 2.7% last month at home and garden centers, 0.6% at electronics and appliance stores, and 0.7% at grocery stores. There were some bright spots: Sales rose 0.9% at online retailers, 0.8% at clothing stores, and 1.2% at furniture stores. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON &#8212; Retail sales fell sharply in May as consumers pulled back after a sharp increase in spending in March to get ahead of President Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping tariffs on nearly all imports. Sales at retail stores and restaurants dropped 0.9% in May, the Commerce Department said Tuesday, after a decline of 0.1% in April. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11540,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11538\/revisions\/11540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}