American gourmets are scrambling to stock up on their favourite imported foodstuffs before Donald Trump’s costly tariffs inflate prices on the shelves.

Tariffs are a “disastrously bad idea”, wrote James Surowiecki for business brand Fast Company. They lead to “higher prices on everything”, from coffee and tea to bananas and strawberries – which is why some US consumers are stockpiling their larders while they can.

‘Strategic’ reserves

With tariff trepidation spreading, readers of The New York Times have been sharing their tales of store-cupboard-stashing. “I call it my strategic coffee reserve,” said one reader, who bought 16lbs of Colombian coffee at Costco the day after Colombia was threatened with tariffs. “I like looking at it. It makes me feel safe”. Other readers have built up a surplus of Canadian maple syrup, Mexican avocados (“rock hard and in bulk”) and EU olive oil.

And it’s not just imported food that’s vulnerable to tariff-related price hikes; the luxury drinks market is, too. Imported spirits and “bubbly, from sparkling water to Moet Hennessy”, may all see a price rise, said CNBC.

Some punters saw this coming: EU wine exports to the US “surged” in November 2024, the month of Trump’s election victory, said Euractiv, while trade data shows that French cognac-makers ramped up shipments to the US in December, ahead of Trump taking office in January, said Reuters.

‘Can you afford fries with that?’

Perhaps most importantly of all – and beyond all the high-end foodie fears – Trump’s “tariff war” with its closest neighbour will “hit Americans where it hurts: in the French fries”, said Canada’s The Globe and Mail.

The US imports $4.8 billion (33.7 billion) in canola oil and $1.7 billion (£1.3 billion) in frozen French fries from Canada every year. Many American restaurants and diners depend on the high profit margin offered by fries, so any additional costs could be “a potential death sentence”. And, surely, “the thought of replacing, ‘Do you want fries with that?’ with, ‘Can you afford fries with that?’ is a threat to the American way of life”.

It could also prove “too much to bear” for the American “who matters most”: President Trump has “long expressed a love” for a Big Mac and fries.

President Donald Trump has launched a trade war against Canada by levying 25% tariffs on the country’s goods, and some Canadians are now preparing to abandon their vacation plans to the U.S. in protest. This could have a significant impact on the American tourism sector, as Canadians make up a substantial percentage of the U.S.’ travel revenue.

This impact will largely be felt by the states bordering Canada, but also by additional states where Canadians travel for warmer weather. And Canada is not the only country whose tourists may cancel their next trip to the U.S.

Canadians have a heavy impact on American tourism

If Canadians stop traveling to the U.S., it could mean a large reduction in revenue for the American tourism industry. Canada is the “top source of international visitors to the United States, with 20.4 million visits in 2024, generating $20.5 billion in spending and supporting 140,000 American jobs,” according to the U.S. Travel Association. A decrease of just 10% in Canadian travel to the U.S. could result in “2.0 million fewer visits, $2.1 billion in lost spending and 14,000 job losses.”

The top five most-visited states by Canadians are California, Florida, Nevada, New York and Texas, and they could all “see declines in retail and hospitality revenue, as shopping is the top leisure activity for Canadian visitors,” said the U.S. Travel Association.

Urging alternate plans

As Trump’s tariffs continue, many Canadians are urging their fellow countrymen to find alternate travel plans — including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This is the “time to choose Canada,” Trudeau said during a press conference following the tariff announcement. Beyond buying Canadian-made products, Trudeau added this “might mean changing your summer vacation plans to stay here in Canada and explore the many national and provincial parks, historical sites and tourist destinations our great country has to offer.”

It seems that many Canadians are heeding Trudeau’s advice. “I’ve decided that I will no longer be traveling to the U.S. unless it’s absolutely necessary to go,” Harold White of Quebec, who canceled his annual trip to Maine, told The New York Times. This “time around, really, I feel like Canadians have been slapped across the face by Trump.”

Canadians are “starting to pivot away and avoid the U.S.,” Alexis von Hoensbroech, the CEO of Canadian airline WestJet, said to the Times. There has been an “increase of bookings into Mexico, into the Caribbean, into other non-U.S. destinations.” Other airlines have said the same: “We are anticipating proactively that there could be a slowdown,” Air Canada Vice President Mark Galardo said to the Times.

For states near the Canadian border, the signs of a “Canadian tourist backlash are cropping up from accommodations in Vermont to campgrounds in New Jersey,” said NPR. Hotel bookings are also down in another sign of the times; bookings “decreased 8% year over year in Niagara Falls, New York, and 12% in the Bellingham area of northwest Washington, about 50 miles south of Vancouver.” Niagara Falls is one of Canada’s and the U.S.’ most popular attractions and reportedly gets 12 million visitors per year.

Canada may not be the only country affected by these tourism shifts, as other nationalities consider slowing down their U.S. travel, too. There has been an uptick in “people heading to Canada’s East Coast, Mexico, Portugal and Antigua in recent weeks” instead of the United States, Amra Durakovic from the travel agency Flight Centre said to the CBC.

Elon Musk is “trying to convince Americans that our Social Security system is overrun by massive fraud,” said Nancy Altman in The Hill. He’s sent his DOGE minions in and come out with a claim that Social Security is paying out funds to millions of beneficiaries over 100 years old. That’s completely false, and in reality “the hardworking civil servants at the Social Security Administration are extremely diligent in tracking the deaths of beneficiaries.” But finding fraud isn’t DOGE’s real aim here. “Musk has made no secret of his disdain for our Social Security system.” It’s the same disdain that a few ultra-wealthy conservatives have expressed for decades. The difference is that now President Trump “is giving Musk the power to steal our earned benefits.”

Musk’s assertions about outrageous Social Security fraud have been almost instantly debunked, said Philip Bump in The Washington Post. Last week, Musk tweeted that DOGE had found records of Social Security recipients who claimed to be as old as 150. “It didn’t take long for other tech guys to point out” that this was obviously “a data error in an old system.” In 2023, the department’s inspector general released a report on the same thing: “There are millions of probably-dead people in the SSA system.” However, only 13 beneficiaries aged 112 or older were being sent checks. “But Musk isn’t very interested in the truth.” He wants to create enough skepticism about Social Security that “all government funding will be rejected as dubious.”

Fraud or not, Social Security is like the Titanic heading toward an iceberg, said Star Parker in RealClearPolitics, and we’ve set it “on automatic pilot.” Our Founding Fathers “would be aghast that today practically every young American is forced to pay into a Social Security that cannot fiscally honor its promised benefits” by the time they retire. “We must free young Americans” from this tragic course. A year ago, 178 House Republicans proposed “modest adjustments to the retirement age” for future Social Security recipients, said Paul Brandus in MarketWatch. “The vast majority of those Republicans were re-elected in November.” Voters no longer see Social Security as untouchable, and “entitlements are on the table.”

Musk’s bluster “would be less scary if not for other missteps,” said Gabriel Rubin in Reuters. DOGE has already made the government stumble into blunders like mistakenly firing critical nuclear safety workers, who then had to be urgently rehired. Giving Musk the power to “meddle” with Social Security risks similar mistakes that could cut off payments to the program’s 69 million recipients—many of whom rely on the benefit. Even if you want changes to Social Security, brazenly sowing doubt about the program with baseless claims of fraud “is playing with fire.”

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It was like a scene out of a movie: a tense parliamentary meeting interrupted by opposition party lawmakers who launched smoke grenades, threw eggs and lit incendiary flares before unfurling a banner announcing “Serbia has risen to bring down the regime.” When the literal smoke cleared, at least three Serbian lawmakers were injured, including one who allegedly suffered a stroke during the chaos.

This week’s dramatic melee in Belgrade is just one moment of unrest amid a months-long protest movement that has shaken the Balkan nation. The protests began in the wake of a November railway disaster that killed 15 people in the city of Novi Sad, an incident that became a galvanizing moment for those who demanded accountability for the supposed cronyism and corruption they blamed for the tragedy.

What happened this week?

Tuesday’s chaotic legislative session, ostensibly called to “vote on a bill to increase university funding,” ended up “highlighting” Serbia’s “deep political divisions,” The Independent said. The violence began after party members accused the Serbian Progressive Party, which leads the ruling coalition and approved Tuesday’s legislative agenda, of “planning to approve dozens of other decisions” during the session, The Associated Press said. They also demanded lawmakers “first confirm the resignation of Prime Minister Milos Vucevic and his government.” Vucevic had announced his resignation in January under pressure from the growing protest movement, which described his abdication as “an attempt by the president to deflect blame — a tactic he has used to defuse past crises,” CNN said. Opposition party protesters also “used pepper spray and threw bottles at cabinet ministers” during Tuesday’s fracas, said Bloomberg, although the parliamentary session later resumed “despite chants from some legislators.”

How did Serbia get here?

The current protest movement began after the roof of a newly renovated train station in the city of Novi Sad collapsed, killing 15 people. Protesters have attributed the infrastructure failure to “corruption they link to President Aleksandar Vucic’s decade in power,” Reuters said. To date, 13 people have been charged in connection to the collapse.

While initially launched by student groups as a series of silent vigils for the Novi Sad victims, “teachers, farmers and other workers” have since joined the movement, which has become “the biggest threat yet” to Vucic’s presidency. Student protesters have largely “kept their distance” from more aggressive protests — such as Tuesday’s parliamentary action — in which “citizens in local communities opted for radicalization,” said Germany’s Deutsche Welle. Although the protests have been minimized in much of the American press, they are a “historic development worth paying attention to,” given the broader context of “Europe-wide backsliding on democracy and a crisis of the political establishment,” said Sasa Savanovic at Al Jazeera.

What could happen next?

Serbian protesters are preparing for a general strike on March 7, followed by a large demonstration in Belgrade on the 15th. The country’s ruling coalition has accused Western nations of “trying to destabilize Serbia” and “topple the government by backing the protests,” Reuters said. “Whether intentionally or not,” said political scientist Cvijetin Milivojevic to Deutsche Welle, “the opposition fell for the bait that the current government has been using for a long time.”