Catenaa, Thursday, July 17, 2025- US retail sales rose unexpectedly in June after consumers pulled back in May, official data showed on Thursday, despite tariff-related price concerns.
The Commerce Department said retail sales rose by 0.6% in June after declining 0.9% in May. Sales in April fell 0.1%, pulled down by a steep drop in auto sales.
Excluding autos and automotive parts, sales rose 0.5%, according to the Commerce Department.
There was broad-based strength across the board. Clothing and accessories stores posted a 0.9% sales increase, while restaurants had a 0.6% increase. Online retailers saw a 0.4% gain.
The latest US report showed that inflation rose last month to its highest level since February, rising 2.7% from a year earlier, as Trump’s sweeping tariffs push up the costs of everything from groceries and clothes to furniture and appliances.
Trump insists that the US effectively has no inflation as he has attempted to pressure Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell into reducing short-term interest rates.
Americans have continued to spend, but they appear to be growing cautious.
A big litmus test was Amazon’s four-day Prime event, along with competing retail sales from the likes of Walmart and Target that kicked off last week. Adobe Digital Insights, which tracks online sales, reported that the sales events drove $24.1 billion in online spending, a 30.3% increase compared with the same period last year.
Retailers are now turning their attention to the back-to-school shopping season, which is the second-largest shopping period behind the winter holidays.
Coresight Research estimates that total US back-to-school spending will increase by 3.3% year compared with the year-ago period, to $33.3 billion. And it predicts that shoppers will do a big chunk of their shopping before August to get ahead of tariffs.
US stocks were up on Thursday following the news of TSMC’s record profit and June retail sales, S&P 500 rose by 0.3%, Dow Jones by 0.4% and Nasdaq by 0.4%.
