After months of delays, President Donald Trump’s contentious tariff barrage was meant to fully take effect at midnight on Wednesday, but only a few hours later, the many of the most widespread duties were delayed — while the focus shifted to China in a big way.

This came after a week of historic stock market plunges and volatility following the president’s import tax policy reveal. Some experts dubbed the tariffs «worse than the worst-case scenario» and prompted even the most ardent Trump supporters on Wall Street to sound the alarm.

For many, one of the most alarming aspects of Trump’s tariff policies was the so-called «reciprocal» tariffs, which were meant to go into effect against most countries on April 9 at midnight. Around midday, however, Trump announced on social media that most of them were being delayed by 90 days, citing efforts by the affected countries to make new trade deals.

The tariffs imposed on China, however, were increased even further. Due to the fact that China is its third biggest trading partner, and given the extremely high new rate, experts noted that the US’s overall tariff rates remained the highest in roughly a century. The stock market certainly seemed to reflect that realization: While values soared after news of the delay, they plunged back down to Earth the next day.

The chaos and potential market damage of Trump’s tariff policies reportedly led Tesla CEO and White House advisor Elon Musk to urge the president against implementing them. Following that news, Musk took to X, lambasting a Trump trade advisor, Peter Navarro, as a «moron» over the tariff drama.

While the president once claimed (with little evidence) that his tariffs would cause no pain for US consumers, he has more recently admitted that some «pains» are likely, reigniting concerns about the cost of living as prices have continued to creep up. Tariffs against China, for example, prompted Acer to announce impending price hikes for its laptops, with similar price increases from other companies expected soon on smartphones, laptops, tablets and TVs. 

A new survey conducted by CNET found considerable anxiety about prices among US adults. And Nintendo cited the tariffs as it delayed the start of preorders for its hotly anticipated Switch 2 video game console, making the impact of Trump’s tariffs all too real for many folks.

So, what exactly are these tariffs that are causing such a frenzy? And more to the point, what do they mean for the prices you’ll see when crossing things off your shopping list? The short answer: Expect to pay more for at least some goods and services. For the long answer, keep reading, and for more, find out how tariffs could affect the price of another popular gaming console.

What exactly is a tariff?

Put simply, a tariff is a tax on the cost of importing or exporting goods by a particular country. Therefore, a 60% tariff on Chinese imports would be a 60% tax on the price of importing, say, computer components from China.

Trump has been fixated on imports as part of his economic plans, often claiming that the money collected from taxes on imported goods would help finance other parts of his agenda. The US imports $3 trillion of goods from other countries annually.

While Trump deployed tariffs in his first term, notably against China, he ramped up his plans more significantly for the 2024 campaign, promising 60% tariffs against China and a universal 20% tariff on all imports into the US. «Tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented,» Trump said at a campaign stop in Michigan last year. More recently, he called himself «Tariff Man» in a post on Truth Social.

Who pays the cost of a tariff?

During the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly claimed that the country from which an imported good is coming pays the cost of the tariffs and that Americans would not see any price increases from them. However, as economists and fact-checkers stressed, this is not always the case.

The companies importing the tariffed goods — American companies or organizations in this case — pay the higher costs. To compensate for those new costs, companies can raise their prices or absorb the additional costs themselves.

So, who ends up paying the price for tariffs? In the end, usually you, the consumer. In February, Trump admitted consumers might «feel pain» financially as his tariffs take effect. For instance, a universal tariff on goods from Canada would increase Canadian lumber prices, which would have the knock-on effect of making construction and home renovations more expensive for US consumers.

Some companies may eat the new costs resulting from tariffs themselves rather than pass them onto consumers, at least temporarily. On March 2, Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright told NBC Nightly News, «It is our intent as we sit here today to absorb those costs,» but he also stressed that prices could go up eventually.

Speaking with CNET, Ryan Reith, vice president of the International Data Corporation’s worldwide mobile device tracking programs, explained that price hikes from tariffs, especially on technology hardware, are inevitable in the short-term. He estimated that the full amount imposed on imports by Trump’s tariffs would be passed on to consumers, which he called the «cost pass-through.» Any potential efforts for company’s to absorb the new costs themselves would come in the future once companies have a better understanding of the tariffs, if at all.

Which Trump tariffs have gone into effect?

At a White House event on April 2, Trump laid out the new wave of tariffs, including:

• A 25% tariff on all foreign-made cars and auto parts went into effect at midnight on Thursday, April 3.
• A sweeping overall 10% tariff on all imported goods went into effect April 5. Despite Trump’s delay announcement on April 9, this one remains in effect.
• For a certain number of countries, which Trump said were more responsible for the US trade deficit, that number was set higher, the president calling them «reciprocal» tariffs: 20% for the 27 nations that make up the European Union, 26% for India, 24% for Japan and so on. These were meant to take effect on April 9, but were delayed by 90-days in the wake of historic stock market volatility, which would make the new effective date July 8.

A complete list was shared on X, claiming that the tariffs were set in proportion to the tariffs allegedly imposed against the US by each country:

Trump’s claims that these reciprocal tariffs are based on high tariffs imposed against the US by the countries in question have drawn intense pushback from experts and economists, who have argued that some of these numbers are false or potentially inflated. For example, the above chart claims a 39% tariff from the EU, despite its average tariff for US goods being around 3%. Some of the tariffs are against places that are not countries but tiny territories of other nations. The Heard and McDonald Islands, for example, are uninhabited. We’ll dig into the confusion around these calculations below.

These join a handful of Trump tariffs already in effect:

• A 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports.
• A preexisting 20% tariff on all Chinese imports, previously set at 10% in February but doubled in early March. This had been in addition to what was initially a 34% reciprocal tariff, but after a series of back-and-forth responses between the two nations, the Trump White House ultimately hiked the reciprocal rate for China to 125%, later clarifying that the total tax on Chinese imports was now a staggering 145%.
• 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico not covered under the 2018 USMCA trade agreement brokered during Trump’s first term. The deal covers roughly half of all imports from Canada and about a third of those from Mexico, so the rest are subject to the new tariffs. Energy imports not covered by USMCA will only be taxed at 10%.

Notably, that minimum 10% tariff will not be on top of those steel, aluminum and auto tariffs. Canada and Mexico were also spared from the 10% minimum additional tariff imposed on all countries the US trades with.

How were the Trump reciprocal tariffs calculated?

The numbers released by the Trump administration for its barrage of «reciprocal» tariffs led to widespread confusion from experts. Trump’s own claim that these new rates were derived by halving the tariffs already imposed against the US by certain countries was widely disputed, with critics noting that some of the numbers listed for certain countries were much higher than the actual rates, and some countries had tariff rates listed despite not specifically having tariffs against the US at all.

In a post to X that spread fast across social media, finance journalist James Surowiecki said that the new reciprocal rates appeared to have been reached by taking the trade deficit the US has with each country and dividing it by the amount the country exports to the US. This, he explained, consistently produced the reciprocal tariff percentages revealed by the White House across the board.

«What extraordinary nonsense this is,» Surowiecki wrote about the finding.

What will tariffs do to prices in the US?

Speaking about Trump’s tariff plans just before they were announced, Navarro said that they would generate $6 trillion in revenue over the next decade. Owing to the reality that tariffs are most often paid by consumers, CNN characterized this as potentially «the largest tax hike in US history.»

New estimates from the Yale Budget Lab, cited by Axios, predict that Trump’s new tariffs will cause a 2.3% increase in inflation throughout 2025. This translates to about a $3,800 increase in expenses for the average American household.

In an email to CNET, Patti Brennan, CEO of Key Financial, predicted that no products would be safe from these price hikes and that tariffs «could have a systemic effect» on the cost of goods, even ones not coming from targeted countries.

«Even if products aren’t coming from the countries affected, companies can increase prices and just blame it on rising costs due to tariffs,» she wrote. «They’ll assume the consumer is well aware of the issue of tariffs and test the boundaries until demand falls off.»

This speculative and uncertain nature of tariff impacts might already extend to consumers. In the wake of Nintendo’s Switch 2 event, speculation was rampant online that the higher-than-expected prices ($450 for the system and $80 for certain games) were because of tariffs. This concern was later disproven, but in a way that showed how gamers might still get hurt by Trump’s policies: Nintendo later delayed the start of system preorders as it reckoned with how to handle the new tariffs, meaning the Switch 2 might be getting even more expensive.

Brennan noted the cost of services should be safe for now. As opposed to goods, which are the tangible products you buy, services are the things you pay for people or companies to do for you, ranging from haircuts and deliveries to legal work and medical care. «Services should be relatively resilient, and consumers (already) spend more on services than on goods,» she explained.

In February, Taiwanese computer hardware company Acer announced that the prices of its products would increase by 10% in March, directly resulting from the Trump tariff on Chinese imports. Acer is the world’s sixth-largest personal PC vendor by sales. Other PC makers like Dell and Asus are expected to make similar moves eventually.

When the Canada and Mexico tariffs initially took effect on March 4, Target CEO Brian Cornell warned that customers could expect higher prices in stores «over the next couple of days.» Echoing that sentiment, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry warned that price hikes were «highly likely» because of the tariffs, as China and Mexico are two of the company’s biggest suppliers.

Will tariffs impact prices immediately?

In the immediate, short-term future — think the next couple of days or weeks after a tariff takes effect — you might not see any major price changes. Tariffs are a tax on imports, so companies won’t need to hike prices on things currently on the shelves, which obviously they’ve already imported. However, once they need to import more products to restock the shelves, that’s when you might start to see inflated prices. So while the stock market might be immediately reacting with historically bad plunges in value, actual prices might take a bit to increase.

Naturally, that new reality has got a lot of folks concerned about when to make certain purchases, with American consumers now feeling anxiety over planned buys being affected by tariffs. As found in CNET’s recent survey, around 38% of shoppers feel pressured to make certain purchases before tariffs make them more expensive. Around 10% say they have already made certain purchases in hopes of getting in before the price hikes, while 27% said they have delayed purchases for things over $500. Generally, this worry is the most acute concerning electronics — like smartphones, laptops and home appliances — which are highly likely to be impacted by Trump’s tariffs.

Mark Cuban, the billionaire businessman and noted Trump critic, voiced these concerns about when to buy certain things in a post to Bluesky just after Trump’s «Liberation Day» announcements. In it, he suggested that consumers might want to stock up on certain items before tariff inflation hits.

«It’s not a bad idea to go to the local Walmart or big box retailer and buy lots of consumables now,» Cuban wrote. «From toothpaste to soap, anything you can find storage space for, buy before they have to replenish inventory.Even if it’s made in the USA, they will jack up the price and blame it on tariffs.»

What is the goal of the White House tariff plan?

The typical goal behind tariffs is to discourage consumers and businesses from buying the tariffed goods and encourage them to buy domestically produced goods instead. When implemented in the right way, tariffs are generally seen as a useful way to protect domestic industries. One of the stated intentions for Trump’s tariffs is along those lines: to restore American manufacturing and production. 

However, tariffs are a better tool for protecting industries that already exist because importers can fall back on them right away. Building up the factories and plants needed for this in the US could take at least two years, leaving Americans to suffer under higher prices until then. That problem is worsened by the fact that the materials needed to build those factories will also be tariffed, making the costs of «reshoring» production in the US too heavy for companies to stomach. These issues, and the general instability of American economic policies under Trump, are part of why experts warn that Trump’s tariffs could have the opposite effect: keeping manufacturing out of the US and leaving consumers stuck with inflated prices. Any factories that do get built in the US because of tariffs also have a high chance of being automated, canceling out a lot of job creation potential.

Trump has reportedly been fixated on the notion that Apple’s iPhone — the most popular smartphone in the US market — can be manufactured entirely in the US. This has been broadly dismissed by experts, for a lot of the same reasons mentioned above, but also because an American-made iPhone could cost upwards of $3,500. One report from 404 Media dubbed the idea «a pure fantasy.»

The claims from Trump officials like Navarro that tariffs will be a massive tax windfall for the US are also at odds with the idea of bringing domestic manufacturing back. In order for tariffs to raise tax revenue, importers and consumers need to keep buying the tariffed goods but if the tariffs actually resulted in the mass switchover to American-made goods, the tariffs would not be raising any money. Basically, the Trump administration’s stated goals contradict themselves and the most likely result in the end is higher prices for consumers and no new jobs. It is also increasingly likely that Trump’s tariffs will see certain products disappear from the US market completely, especially with the new 145% tax on Chinese imports.

It’s also important to note that the changes hypothetically needed to brace for Trump’s tariffs are beyond the means of smaller businesses. In another post to Bluesky, Cuban echoed this sentiment, predicting that the tariffs would hurt the majority of the businesses and workers in the US, because they will be unable to respond to them.

«There are 33 [million] companies in the USA,» Cuban wrote. «Only 21k employ 500 or more. And they only make up 23% of workers. Trump and Elon [Musk] are ignoring the more than 32 [million] entrepreneurs that can’t afford to build a new factory or pay tariffs or absorb canceled contracts.»

In her correspondence with CNET before the April 2 announcement, Brennan said that it’s tough to predict right now if tariffs will benefit the US economy long-term after the initial price shocks.

«It will be painful short-term, but it will reveal how resilient our economy is (or isn’t),» she wrote. «If tariffs are successful in raising revenue, it could reduce the amount of our annual deficit (shortfall). This could postpone the need to increase taxes on all Americans. In the end, no one really knows what the outcome will be; for example, in spite of higher inflation than the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%, the dollar grew in value. Just as we don’t always win other types of wars, I’m not sure a trade war is going to accomplish the stated goals.»

For more, see how tariffs might raise the prices of Apple products and find some expert tips for saving money.

When Halo came out on the Xbox in 2001 as the must-have launch game for the console, players new to Bungie games heard bits and pieces about its older series, called Marathon. After being dormant for more than two decades, Bungie revealed in 2023 that it was bringing back the series in a new game, which will have its first full reveal on Saturday. 

Marathon is Bungie’s newest game, taking place in the universe that started in 1994. As the reveal is only days away, it’s a good time to look back at the series that was pushing the limits of the first-person shooter genre in the mid-1990s after Doom and Wolfenstein 3D set the foundation. 

What is Marathon? 

Marathon is a sci-fi FPS that was released in 1994 for the Apple Macintosh. Although all the revolutionary games were happening on PC at the time, Bungie viewed the Mac as a more open platform for developers to make games on. 

Taking place in the year 2794, Marathon has players take the role of an unnamed security officer on the colony ship UESC Marathon. An alien race known as the S’pht is attacking the ship, and it’s up to this unnamed officer to stop them. 

What set Marathon apart from other FPS games at the time was how it had the story unfold through computer terminals, where the officer would receive messages from one of the three AIs operating on the ship, as well as crew diary entries and other databases. Over the course of the game, players learn that the S’pht are actually controlled by another race of aliens called the Pfhor, which were in contact with one of the ship’s AI named Durandal. This particular AI has essentially become sentient and evil. It used the aliens as a way for it to escape the ship, and it’s up to the player to secure Marathon. 

Marathon was a hit for Bungie, and at the time, some considered it a step up from Doom and Doom 2 with its innovative storytelling. 

Marathon 2: Durandal came out in 1995 for Mac and Windows. The sequel picks up right after the first game, in which Durandal abducts the security officer before it escapes the ship and has been kept in stasis for 17 years. 

The AI has taken the player to the S’pht homeworld, Lh’owon. Durandal manipulates the security officer, saying that the Pfhor are preparing to attack Earth. In reality, the AI is searching for an ancient S’pht AI to learn how to free itself from the universe. 

Marathon 2 received more praise than the original as Bungie made big strides in the game’s graphics and gameplay. But some of the sequel’s greatest innovations were with its multiplayer. Marathon 2 has several modes that would be mainstays for the Halo series, including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill and the novel Kill the Man with the Ball mode (which would later be referred to as Oddball in Halo). It also had a co-op story campaign. 

Marathon Infinity is the third game of the Marathon trilogy, released in 1996, but this time only for Mac. At the end of the previous game, the Pfhor unleashed a doomsday device into the sun of the system with the S’pht homeworld, Lh’owon. This unleashed an ancient being known as the W’rkncacnter. This entity is a threat to the entire galaxy, and the security officer has to stop it. To do so, he must jump through alternate timelines to try to get to the point before the W’rkncacnter is released. 

Much like its predecessors, Marathon 3 received high praise for its storytelling and gameplay. It even won the best Mac Game from CNET’s Gamecenter back in 1996. The third game also had another mainstay for Bungie, the Forge system. Players could create their own Marathon level using tools similar to how they would be done more than a decade later in Halo 3.

How is Marathon related to Halo? 

Since the first Halo game was released in 2001, fans of the Marathon series have been trying to link the two franchises together. It seemed like the two must be linked as Halo makes use of multiple symbols from the Marathon games. 

However, all the similarities between the two games are less about the games taking place in the same universe and more about Bungie inserting cute but insubstantial references to the Marathon games. The symbols, names and even spoken lines found in the Halo games that directly relate to the Marathon games don’t prove any connection. Could there be a sliver of a connection between the universes if someone were to theorize hard enough? Probably, but that is doing way too much work for two games that have almost no relation to each other, with the only tie being their developer. 

It remains to be seen whether Marathon is connected to Bungie’s other property, Destiny, which it has built up over the past decade.

What is with the new Marathon? 

The new Marathon game will be something new for Bungie, which moved from Halo to its multiplayer co-op and player-versus-player franchise Destiny. Its new game is a PvP extraction shooter, a popular multiplayer genre nowadays. With extraction shooters, players are dropped onto a map and go search for loot while taking down AI-controlled enemies. The goal is to get extracted from the map with the loot, but other players are getting their own loot and shooting at you for your loot. 

In the new Marathon, players will take the role of cybernetic mercenaries called Runners who are on the alien planet of Tau Ceti IV. This will be an online-only game, but Bungie has said that it wants to make this genre more approachable to players. 

How does the new Marathon connect to the original games?

Bungie has yet to clearly link this new game to the older Marathon games that the studio built its reputation upon. There is a definite connection, as Tau Ceti IV was a colony from the first Marathon game, which appears to have been abandoned by the humans who lived there. However, aside from a few details, Bungie has not laid out much else to connect the games. Bungie has said this new Marathon game isn’t a direct sequel to the older games. 

When Bungie revealed the new game in 2023, the team said players don’t need to know the Marathon lore to understand it, but longtime fans will be excited by some of the references they’ll find throughout the game. Bungie says the story of the game will unfold as players interact with the world. 

Marathon’s reveal will happen on Saturday, and the game will come out on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series consoles sometime in the future.