The Washington Post Editorial Board couldn’t have timed its faux-fussbudgeting over how the Trump tariffs were supposedly juicing Valentine’s Day inflation more perfectly (sarcasm). News was just released that inflation eased in January. The Post blurted out at 5:45 am February 13, “What do bad breath, wilted flowers and protectionism have in common? They might spoil Valentine’s Day.” “Bad breath” is right, because our faces contorted once we read the halitosis-infected headline following a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released just under 3 hours later showing that consumer prices increased 2.4 percent, which shattered naysayers’ expectations and defied “fears of a tariff-induced hike in overall costs,” as ABC News summarized. The Post would even release a story on the BLS data later admitting it was a “promising sign for” the “economy.”  Sheesh, you’d think The Post editorial board could have waited at least until after the BLS report data was released before it would make itself look stupid with this headline, “The love tax: Valentine’s Day costs more this year because of tariffs.” And what was the editorial board’s evidence that tariffs were definitively causing Valentine’s Day price hikes (flowers, chocolates, etc)? Well not much: “Boxes of chocolates from outside the United States cost an extra 8 percent thanks to 2025 tariff increases, according to the Cato Institute’s Scott Lincicome.” Nowhere did The Post draw a clear straight line — either using Lincicome’s analysis or its own — to clearly break past the wall of the correlation doesn’t equal causation fallacy. The Board just assumed the linkages prima facie.  Wellington-Altus Chief Market Strategist James E. Thorne underscored February 13 in an X post that the latest inflation data shows prices are being "overwhelmingly" driven by shelter, but “[t]here is still no evidence of any tariff-related inflationary pressure.” Economist Daniel Lacalle took the data as a victory lap for his August 2025 analysis showcasing why “Tariffs do not cause inflation.” In that report, Lacalle broke down five core reasons why tariffs are not inflationary: Costs do not dictate final prices; it is the other way around, as the Menger imputation principle shows. Tariffs do not suppose more units of currency in the system nor higher monetary velocity. Furthermore, they do not impact aggregate prices. Supply chains are not a binary producer-buyer chain. They are exceedingly complex, and many of those rivets and links absorb costs. Most exporter nations have overcapacity and working capital challenges and thus prefer to keep prices attractive to sell to the US, the largest and richest market. Tariffs do not increase aggregate prices. For the record. Today’s CPI release once again underscores that inflation remains overwhelmingly driven by shelter — a lagging and statistically distorted component. There is still no evidence of any tariff-related inflationary pressure. An objective reading of the data would… pic.twitter.com/2dCNxHjkeX — James E. Thorne (@DrJStrategy) February 13, 2026 But The Post acted like it somehow notched a gotcha! against President Donald Trump for supposedly ruining the vibe of Valentine’s Day romance: Valentine’s Day, of course, is not the only day people feel tariffs. If everyday life is going to be more expensive, Americans need a better reason than they’ve been given so far.” Well, as the latest BLS inflation data implies, tariffs are not the de facto “reason” for why life is more expensive. For that, it’s perhaps best to look at the out-of-control spending policies under Trump’s predecessor that caused overall prices to skyrocket over 20 percent in the first place.