Fireworks, hot dogs, and gas: what costs more – or less – this Fourth of July weekend

CNN

2 days ago

This Fourth of July, millions of Americans will be hitting the road, feasting on barbecue fixings, while watching firework displays.
Here's how much it will all cost.
Inflation is at its lowest level since 2020, while gas prices are the cheapest they've been in four years. But this year's fireworks displays may look a little different and could be more costly. That's because 99% of fireworks sold in the US come from China, which are facing tariffs of 30%. While that's much lower than President Donald Trump's initial tariff of 145% on Chinese imports, it's still too high for many businesses.
The fireworks industry is mostly made up of small businesses like Hoffman Family Fireworks in Scott City, Missouri. The tariffs were added late in the fireworks season, making it challenging for businesses to pass those costs on to consumers, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association.
'We have spent tens of thousands of dollars extra on tariffs already this year,' Mary Ann Hoffman of Hoffman Family Fireworks told CNN affiliate KFVS.
'We are absorbing the cost this year,' she said.
The American Pyrotechnics Association is calling on the Trump administration to exempt fireworks from the tariffs, which it did successfully in 2019 during Trump's first term.
'It's not sustainable. We don't know what's going to happen at the end of the 90-day pause (on July 9). Are the tariffs going to go back up to triple digits? If that happens, we're going to see businesses close down,' said Julie Heckman, the association's executive director.
That means companies have had to get more creative with their firework displays this year. Ordering last-minute fireworks is be expensive, so businesses had to work with their existing inventories. If they're short on certain colors of fireworks, you may see more blue than red in the sky, for example.
Fireworks are usually ordered a year in advance. Macy's worked closely with its pyrotechnic partners over the last year to source fireworks for the retailer's annual Fourth of July fireworks display in New York City months ahead of the show, according to a person familiar with this year's planning.
But if fireworks are still taxed at the current tariff rate, nearly every fireworks show next year will be more expensive.
'The uncertainty is how are they (businesses) going to plan for next year when we believe 2026, America's 250th anniversary, is going to be the largest celebrations ever, where the demand for fireworks is going to be record-breaking,' Heckman said.
Fireworks for Christmas and New Year's celebrations this year will likely be more expensive. Many importers have held their fireworks in China to wait out the higher tariffs, feeling there is no other option.
'It would be next to impossible to try to re-shore manufacturing to the US to produce the volume of fireworks to meet the demand of the US. We import 322 million pounds of explosives (fireworks) every year,' Heckman said.
After five years of pandemic-fueled inflation, the increase in the cost of a Fourth of July barbecue is back to normal this year.
A meal for 10 people with all the traditional July 4th offerings will cost $130, up 2.2% from last year, according to a report from Wells Fargo. The bank analyzed the prices of barbecue staples like chicken, beef sliders, eggs, hot dogs, fresh fruit and vegetables as well as wine, beer and soda.
The higher overall prices are 'primarily due to the beef and egg inflation,' Michael Swanson, chief agricultural economist at Wells Fargo, told CNN. 'That puts it close enough to the long-term average that most Americans won't notice anything too unusual.'
Grocery store prices usually increased between one and two percent each year before the pandemic, according to the Consumer Price Index. Overall inflation rose 2.4% in May.
Tariffs haven't yet impacted Fourth of July food prices, Swanson said. That's because more than 85% of the menu items are produced domestically.
'Most of what we're seeing on the menu, and for the most part what we eat on an ongoing basis, is domestically sourced, and there's seasonality around the fruits and vegetables,' said Swanson.
However, he said that due to shifting trade measures, 'it's really complicated right now to know what the current situation is on a product-by-product basis and also on a country-by-country basis.'
The menu item with the slowest price growth is chicken – up just 1% in the last year — which is especially affordable because American wages have risen much faster than the price of poultry, Swanson said.
But beef prices shot up 7.4% in the last year, according to Wells Fargo.
'Beef was already at a multi-year high for the cattle prices because of the low supply domestically,' Swanson said, adding that a screwworm outbreak impacted the supply restriction, since it required shutting down the border for importing Mexican feeder cattle.
The price of potatoes for your potato salad is up 1% from last year, but the eggs needed for mixing are up 40% because a deadly avian flu killed tens of millions of egg-laying birds earlier this year.
Buns for burgers fell 1.5%, while the prices of strawberries and watermelon — both of which are highly produced in the United States — dropped 0.6% year-over-year.
A record 61.6 million people are expected to travel by car this holiday weekend, according to AAA. Drivers will see the lowest fourth of July gas prices since the pandemic began. The average price for a gallon of gas heading into the holiday weekend was $3.17 according to AAA. That's 33 cents less than last year.
'We really didn't see much of a spring rise in prices like we tend to see with gas prices. Right now we are below where we expected them to be. We expected them to be probably in the mid $3 a gallon area, more than they are today,' said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.
Trump's trade policies have pushed prices lower as consumers became nervous and pulled back on spending, which weakened demand for oil prices, De Haan said.
'I think a lot of the outcome there was because (of) not only OPEC raising production but the uncertainty brought on by some of Trump's policies on trade,' De Haan said.
The conflict between Israel and Iran last month pushed oil prices close to $80 a barrel. Since then, prices have settled closer to pre-conflict prices of $65 a barrel. De Haan expects the impact on gas prices from the spike in oil prices to fade in the next few days.
'We should continue to drift lower for the next couple of days before you can say that there's no longer really an impact,' he said.
And if there are no additional interruptions like Middle East conflicts or hurricanes, De Haan expects gas prices could fall below $3 a gallon by the end of the summer.