US consumers will start feeling the pain of tariffs in stores by the end of May, Trump’s ex-top economic advisor says

American consumers are just weeks away from feeling the major impacts of President Donald Trump’s tariffs at the cash register, according to former Trump chief economic advisor Gary Cohn.

In a CBS interview, Cohn forecast that the effects of newly imposed tariffs on China will start rippling through the US economy by late May.

“The cycle from a good being sold in China, loaded on a vessel, sailed across the ocean, unloaded in the United States, put in a factory, and distributed to a shelf is about eight weeks in the United States,” he told CBS’ Face The Nation on Sunday.

Cohn, who led the National Economic Council for a year during the first Trump administration, now serves as IBM’s vice chairman, having previously been Goldman Sachs’ chief operating officer.

He said that with tariffs on China coming into force on April 2, the real pain point for consumers is expected to emerge around “the last couple weeks of May.”

Already, US shoppers have been scrambling to avoid potential price hikes by front-loading purchases of big-ticket items like automobiles, washing machines, and electronics.

“We’ve seen automobile sales almost all-time record highs,” Cohn said, “because they’re trying to avoid tariffs.”

While recent hard data, like earnings reports for the first quarter, have so far shown strength, Cohn emphasized that softer data, like consumer confidence surveys, are beginning to flash warning signs.

“You start to see much more weakness in the polling data,” Cohn said, noting that major consumer brands, including Chipotle, PepsiCo, and luxury giant LVMH, have warned of slowing sales in the second quarter.

The tariffs are expected to hit small businesses especially hard. Toy retailers, for example, are already struggling with a 145% tariff on goods they normally order for the holiday season. Many are either scaling back orders or facing potential closures, Cohn said.

Last week, logistics experts and shipping industry insiders echoed similar concerns, telling Business Insider they expect major disruptions to the prices and availability of goods in the coming weeks.

Four even warned that unchecked supply chain stress could trigger higher domestic unemployment, global market instability, and rising geopolitical tensions.

Compounding the situation is a collapse in maritime container bookings between China and the US, down 64%, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told investors at a JPMorgan conference last week.

Cohn also warned that tariffs are “highly regressive,” disproportionately affecting lower-income Americans who spend a greater share of their income on basic goods.

While Trump has floated the possibility of new tax cuts targeting households earning under $200,000 to offset higher costs, Cohn was skeptical about the timeline, saying it would be “very fast” for anything meaningful to happen by the end of May.

With economic uncertainty rising and no active US-China trade negotiations underway, Cohn made it clear: the economic turbulence tied to tariffs is only just beginning.

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