Trump fans voted for lower egg prices - but now they're in for a shock

Egg prices have risen in the US and unfortunately it does not sound like Donald Trump has hatched plans to solve it.

Known as ‘Eggflation’, the increasing price of eggs in the US has been linked to inflation as well as the ongoing avian influenza (bird flu) outbreak. The average price of one dozen eggs was a whopping $4.95 in January, and viral videos have shown Americans scrambling to stores like Costco to grab as many boxes of eggs as they possibly can.

Egg prices have become a way to measure inflation that has impacted the US for the last several years.

With the bird flu crisis leading to the mass slaughter of millions of chickens in a bid to contain the spread, supply of eggs has dwindled – and there’s no sign of it slowing down.

What has the Trump administration said about soaring egg prices?

Republicans blasted former president Joe Biden for the price of eggs due to policies that hurt inflation. Part of Trump’s campaign highlighted the cost of eggs and promised to bring prices down, but that has yet to happen. In fact, he pledged to bring down prices on his first day back in the Oval Office.

“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One,” he said at a press conference in August 2024 per CNN.

With no clear answers in sight, Trump was asked about food prices during a Fox News interview aired on 10 February. He did not offer any concrete policy proposals to halt inflation.

Anchor Bret Baier asked the president: “If all goes to plan, when do you think families will be able to feel prices going down—groceries, energy—or are you kind of saying to them, ‘Hang on, inflation may get worse until it gets better’?”

“I think we're going to become a rich – and look, we're not that rich right now,” Trump responded.

When asked later about whether tariffs will raise prices for consumers as economists have suspected, Trump replied: “It might but it’s ultimately going to be much less expensive.”

Grocery stores are limiting the number of eggs Americans can buy Photo by Ben Kolde on Unsplash

The Trump administration blamed the Biden administration for the continued shortage of eggs as well as high prices.

“As far as the egg shortage ... the Biden administration and the Department of Agriculture directed the mass killing of more than 100 million chickens which has led to a lack of chicken supply in this country,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in January.

The Department of Agriculture, which spent at least $1.14 billion on compensating farmers for birds they had to cull, predicts that prices will soar another 20 percent this year.

Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to the president last month criticising his lack of action regarding the price of groceries for consumers. "You have instead focused on mass deportations and pardoning January 6 attackers, including those who assaulted Capitol police officers," the later states. "Your sole action on costs was an executive order that contained only the barest mention of food prices, and not a single specific policy to reduce them.”

Egg prices are one of the promises Trump pledged but failed to deliver within his own time limit. In other news, a New York representative wants to make Trump's birthday a public holiday.

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