While many expected the new Trump tariffs to affect many goods and even groceries, as we do import a lot of our food from abroad, one thing that many had not considered was the increase in fast food prices, which have already been increasingly rising for years despite no changes to the minimum salary or the conditions of workers, such as access to insurance or paid days off. But now McDonald’s is making clear that their profits are on the line and that they will be passing on the increase in their expenses on to the customers, like many other retailers and grocers have done already.
Although it has been years since fast food was actually cheap, especially considering that now most people do not even have to go into their restaurant to get their order to go, they just use the drive through, the price was still better than some sit down restaurants that needed to have waiters or buss tables. Now this is no longer the case and going to McDonald’s is getting just as expensive as going out for dinner anywhere else.
Just the Big Mac can now run you almost $9, and that is without including a drink, which are now not refillable in many places due to health concerns, fries, or a desert. By adding any of the above, your order will run you almost the same as going to a sit down place, and you will likely get a cleaner table almost anywhere else.
How Trump caused the McDonald’s price increase despite his demographic being one of the biggest consumers
Well, during Trump’s announcement in April 2025, when he declared “Liberation Day”, the president took the opportunity to talk about some of the new measures that he was going to implement to ensure that more products would be produced in America and not imported from abroad. This announcement backfired spectacularly in many ways and had to be almost walked back, with many delays in implementation because of the lack of feasibility that came with it.
One of the things that the president did not count on is the fact that America is not self-sufficient at all when it comes to food production, and there really is not enough of anything being produced in country to manage to feed the entire population, never mind as cheaply without importing food from abroad.
In the case of McDonald’s, when he announced a blanket 10% tariff on all imports, their supply chain was affected, as Australia is one of the world’s leading suppliers of beef, and a large portion of that beef goes directly to McDonald’s. In fact, according to the group Farmers for Climate Action, 70% of Australian beef is exported and McDonald’s in the US is their biggest customer.
Since the tariffs were paused due to the outrage, prices remained for the 90 day pause to renegotiate trade agreements, but that ended on July 8 with no resolution, and now McDonald’s is making good on their promise to pass on the costs to consumers. Currently, the average price of a Big Mac in the United States is $7.99 and adjusted for the new tariff, the burger could reach at least $8.78, an increase of nearly a dollar, which will not please the customer base of the company, as they have already repeatedly complained about the increases that have happened in recent years to “cover the cost of inflation” and increase in salary, even though only one of those things has happened.
But that is not the end of the bad news, if tariffs are imposed and increased on some of McDonald’s other suppliers like the EU, the cost of the Big Mac would be closer to, or even surpass the $9 mark.