Fact check: Trump falsely claims it’s only beef, but dozens of groceries have gotten more expensive this year
By Daniel Dale, Matt Stiles, CNN
President Donald Trump keeps saying beef is the only grocery product that has gotten more expensive during his second presidency.
“Groceries are down except for the beef, which I’ll get down too,” he said in a speech last week in Tokyo. “Groceries are way down, other than beef,” he said in a Fox News interview on Wednesday. “(Grocery prices) went up under Biden. Right now, they’re going down. Other than beef, which we’re working on, which we can solve very quickly,” he said in a CBS interview taped last week. “We have much lower prices than (Democrats) do, and we only have one thing, beef,” he said at the White House on Thursday.
Trump’s claim that grocery prices are down is wrong. And so is his claim that beef is the only grocery product that has increased in price.
Grocery prices are up, not down. Grocery prices have increased during Trump’s second term. Average US grocery prices in September were 1.4% higher than they were in January, the month he returned to office, and 2.7% higher than they were in September 2024 under former President Joe Biden, Consumer Price Index figures show. The 0.6% increase in average grocery prices from July 2025 to August 2025 was the biggest month-to-month jump in three years, and it was followed by a 0.3% increase from August to September.
It’s not just beef – not even close. The prices of dozens of grocery products increased from January to September. A smattering of products got cheaper, notably including eggs, but a far greater number of products got more expensive.
You can see the long list of increases in the graphic below.
“The president’s claims about grocery prices don’t align with the government’s own data,” Michigan State University professor David Ortega, a food economist, said in a Thursday email. He added, “While it’s true that beef prices have risen to record highs, they’re far from the only category seeing increases. … The reality is that prices for many everyday grocery items have increased in recent months, and tariff-related cost increases are now feeding through to consumers.”
Prices increased from January to September in five of the six overarching groups of grocery prices tracked by the federal government’s Consumer Price Index: meats, poultry, fish, and eggs (up 4.5%); nonalcoholic beverages and beverage materials (up 2.8%); cereals and bakery products (up 1.4%); fruits and vegetables (up 1.3%); and “other food at home” (up 0.8%). Only the dairy and related products group was down, declining 0.2%.
Grocery prices, like overall prices, tend to rise over time, and they can bounce around for all sorts of reasons unrelated to the actions of the president. But experts like Ortega say two of Trump’s signature policies have clearly contributed to this year’s increases: large and broad tariffs on imported goods (including food and food packaging materials) and a crackdown on undocumented immigrants (who make up a large percentage of the US farm workforce).
The price of uncooked ground beef was up 14.2% between January and September. There was an even bigger increase, 15.3%, in the price of coffee; coffee consumed in the US is almost entirely imported, and much of it is now hit with big tariffs. Bananas, another product that is almost entirely imported in the US and now faces substantial tariffs, saw a 7.9% spike since January.
Below is a list of the January-to-September changes in the price of 56 grocery products or product categories tracked by the Consumer Price Index.
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