American families are struggling under the weight of rising grocery prices, and they are making their frustrations known. Polling consistently shows that grocery costs are a top concern for voters. Seven in ten Americans are “very concerned” about the cost of groceries. President Donald Trump was absolutely right when he said he won the 2024 election because of high grocery prices.
On day one, President Trump began reversing course on the previous administration's inflationary agenda, starting with action to unleash American energy production to help lower prices across the board. He has begun to eliminate burdensome regulations that increase the price of housing and healthcare, and his team is implementing a comprehensive plan to address the egg shortage crisis.
We are already seeing some of the benefits of this new low tax and low regulation agenda. Egg prices are down, and the initial inflation numbers released in mid-March were promising. That said, these are still fragile economic times, and we can’t afford government overreach against America’s farmers that would set back this progress and drastically raise grocery prices.
Coming out of the government’s draconian response to COVID, Americans became weary of bureaucratic dictates coming from an alphabet soup of government agencies. That is part of the reason why Trump chose Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve as his Health and Human Services Secretary. After years of failures from our public health establishment, especially, America wanted a disrupter willing to ask tough questions and challenge the status quo. However, the answer to government overreach is not more government overreach, and that is precisely what some of Secretary Kennedy's supporters are pushing.
Take, for example, their calls for a government ban on plant-based oils. They might make a convenient scapegoat for America’s health problems, but the antagonism against them is not supported by the evidence. Study after study with large randomized control trials shows they are a healthier alternative to saturated fats and can be part of a balanced diet. The American people should be able to make their own decisions, and more government dictates would only upend the food industry and drive costs higher for ordinary Americans.
Some Make America Healthy Again activists also want to target some seed oils with heavy-handed government crackdowns. These regulatory calls are just as counterproductive.
Seed oils, made from plants like corn and soybean, are ubiquitous in food production, found in everything from salad dressings to baked goods to fried foods. They are widely used not only because of their affordability but also because they provide the necessary fats and stability for safe and affordable food production. If government regulators impose restrictions or bans on these oils, food manufacturers and restaurants will be forced to find alternatives—many of which are over five times more expensive. That cost increase will be passed down to consumers, just as we’ve seen with other government-imposed disruptions to supply chains.
In an era where grocery prices have already surged thanks to inflation and supply chain challenges, further government intervention will only make matters worse. The free market, not government overreach, should determine what ingredients are used in their food.
The Trump administration needs to change America’s entrenched health bureaucracy, but it should do so while remaining focused on lowering grocery prices and increasing consumer choice. Americans have already lost faith in public health institutions after years of inconsistent messaging and politically driven mandates. Cracking down on plant-based oils without clear evidence to justify such drastic government overreach would make this problem even worse, hurting everyday Americans by raising grocery prices, and creating food market disruptions, and giving them less reason to trust America's age-old institutions.
The way to make Americans healthier and rebuild trust is to empower consumers with better information. President Trump won in November because the public felt he listens to their everyday concerns better than his competitors. Now, they want lower prices and a government that respects them enough to let them make their own choices. A plant-based oil ban won't give them any of this, so Trump and RFK should shut down the calls for such a crackdown quickly.
Thomas Stratmann is a Distinguished University Professor of Public Choice, Political Economy, Law and Economics, Health Economics, and Experimental Economics at George Mason University. He holds an appointment at both GMU’s Department of Economics and Antonin Scalia Law School.
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