Its been very controversial, especially because most of the land gows through Maine, cutting a line across it. Without doing much to improve Maine's grid. Mainer's passed a ballot initiative to halt the project, but courts ruled that Mainer's didn't have any right to halt the project.
So, the Central Maine Power (the power company) Corridor - officially called the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) - was back on. With various rounds of tax increases for various states & federal grants. Total cost has gone from $1B to over $1.5b.
Conceptually seems like a good idea! It's so unfortunate that it's such a visible cut through & across the land. And now, with this madness, who knows what the future holds.
If there was a lot of domestic suppliers and (more importantly) a lot of domestic competition, inflation might be avoided. But none of that exists, so expect consumers to pay for the tariffs directly and then more.
Despite not having concrete proof, I think there's a fairly plausible chain of events from tariffs to broader price increases. Trump's tariffs include a 10% tariff on Canadian oil and gas. If you're in a region that relies heavily on these things coming from Canada you're going to see prices go up on your monthly energy bills, fuel for your vehicle, etc. This also affects local businesses and directly increases their costs. Businesses can only absorb so much of an increase before they raise prices. Now you're able to buy even less between your increased monthly expenses and the higher prices in stores. This makes you go to your boss and ask for a raise just so you can keep up with what your purchasing power used to be. If your boss gives you that raise, the business sees their expenses go up again and may need to raise prices as a result.
In the scenario I described above, what step do you think won't happen that allows us to prevent higher energy prices from leading to inflation?
[0] https://carnegieendowment.org/china-financial-markets/2021/0...