PHILADELPHIA — Gov. Josh Shapiro on Thursday blasted President Donald Trump’s trade agenda during a visit to the Port of Philadelphia, saying the White House has created “serious economic uncertainty” that is increasing costs for shippers and raising prices at the grocery store.

“I’m worried about how the decisions being made right now in Washington, D.C., and the White House are going to hurt this port,” Shapiro, a Democrat, said at the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia, where he was joined by dockworkers and logistics executives.

Even though Trump “blinked” Wednesday by pausing some of the tariffs he’d imposed, Shapiro said, the levies that remain in place “are much higher than any tariffs in place 75 days ago … and higher than any other time in the last 100 years in this nation.”

With a cold breeze coming off the Delaware River blowing a huge American flag in the wind behind him, Shapiro noted the port is a substantial economic driver, employing 12,000 people and pumping $1.5 billion into the state economy every year.

Shapiro called Trump’s economic plan “chaotic” and warned it would mean higher prices for Pennsylvania consumers. He traced the path of bananas from Central America to Philadelphia, which imports more fresh fruit than any other U.S. port.

“It will likely mean more money coming out of your pocket,” he said.

The White House said Thursday that it “is the responsibility of the president of the United States to reassure the markets and Americans about their economic security in the face of nonstop media fearmongering.”

“Democrats railed against China’s cheating for decades, and now they’re playing partisan games instead of celebrating President Trump’s decisive action yesterday to finally corner China,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement to The Inquirer.

The governor’s remarks came a day after Trump paused some of the steepest import taxes the president had imposed just hours after they took effect, while simultaneously raising tariffs on goods from China — the world’s second largest economy — to 125%. The White House on Thursday clarified that the minimum tariff on China was actually 145%, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The escalation with China came after Beijing, in response to an earlier Trump tariff hike, raised taxes on American exports to 84%.

Trump also said Wednesday that he would keep in place a 10% levy on nearly all imports while his administration seeks to negotiate trade deals with foreign governments over the next 90 days. The president’s decision to reverse course on what he calls reciprocal tariffs came amid turmoil in financial markets.

“I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid,” Trump told reporters Wednesday, adding that he’d been watching volatility in the bond market.

U.S. stocks soared Wednesday after Trump’s announcement but plunged again Thursday amid continued economic uncertainty.

Even after Trump’s rollback of some levies, consumers still face an overall effective tariff rate of 25% — the highest in more than a century, according to the Yale Budget Lab, a policy research center. The budget lab estimates the tariffs will raise the price of apparel 58% in the short term and increase consumer prices overall by 2.7%.

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