A few of the things in this world that I will reliably nerd out about include supply chains, prices, and cooking — this story has all three.
About two years ago, I was strolling the aisles at Costco when a 12-piece Henckels stainless steel cookware set caught my eye.
I’m a big fan of iron and steel pans rather than non-stick surfaces, and our set of Henckels knives has held up well over years of use. (I’m also kind of a sucker for brand consistency in the kitchen.)
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But even at Costco’s warehouse club pricing, I didn’t want to pay the full $184.99 it was selling for at the time, so I began periodically checking the warehouse and the app for a deal. I went so far as to memorize the item code (1816600), so I could instantly pull up the product listing.
My patience was rewarded when Costco knocked $40 off the price as part of a pre-Thanksgiving promotion, and I snapped up the set for $144.99.
The timing also couldn’t have been better: a few months later, President Donald Trump kicked off the first moves in his trade war that would rock the global supply chain.
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Why these pans ended up being a surprisingly good tariff tracker
As my Business Insider colleagues and I looked for ways to measure the impact of Trump’s new tariff policies on American households, we made several lists of consumer goods that could be affected. But my mind kept turning back to the pots and pans now sitting in my cupboard.
Although Henckels and its parent company, Zwilling, are German names, this set is manufactured in China, which has long been one of Trump’s prime targets in trade policy. And the pans are made of stainless steel and aluminum, which are among the materials that Trump is particularly fixated on.
According to a tariff simulator from supply chain management company Flexport, import duties on stainless steel kitchenware from China began rising in February 2025 and accelerated with Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement on April 2 of that year.
Sure enough, when I stopped by Costco later that month, the price of the Henckels set had surged to $249.99 — that’s $105 or 70% more than what I had paid when it was marked down five months before.
Costco did not respond to a request for comment for this story. A representative for Zwilling was not immediately available to comment due to the market holiday weekend.
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Higher import costs lead not just to higher prices, but fewer discounts too
I also noticed during visits in May and June that there were no discounts like the ones I had seen several times throughout the prior year, which is another way that retailers typically manage higher costs without resorting to higher prices.
Additional policy changes after Liberation Day eventually resulted in higher tariffs on steel imports, but Costco apparently found a way to manage the expense because in June, I saw the price come down by $30 to $219.99.
The set appeared to be out of stock during a few fall warehouse visits, and I slowed down my admittedly unhealthy fixation on this particular item.
Still, in January, a Costco fan page posted a photo of the set at a warehouse listed for $209.99, with a $45 discount, bringing the sale price to a respectable $164.99, though it was still $20 more than I had paid.
The tariff impact had also come down slightly by that point, according to the Flexport simulator, but not by much.
The big Supreme Court tariff decision has a relatively small impact here
February’s Supreme Court ruling did not significantly affect tariffs on steel cookware, since the set of Trump’s tariffs that were struck down were separate from those on steel and other metals.
When I visited the warehouse on Thursday, one year to the date after Liberation Day, the set was available for $209.99 — 35% more than it cost before Trump took office.
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Costco CEO Ron Vachris explained why the impact is so hard to pin down in last month’s earnings call, saying “the complexity of the tariffs implemented over the past year, including layering of different tariffs on top of each other and multiple changes in rates throughout the year, also made it challenging to track the exact impact to an individual item sold.”
What Costco is doing about the tariff chaos
Vachris said the company has taken several steps to manage the impact of tariffs and, in some cases, did not pass the full cost on to members. He also pledged to pass along any refunds through “lower prices and better values” for members.
He called out pots and pans as a particular bright spot in last quarter’s results.
“At Costco, we always want to be the first to lower prices and the last to raise them,” he said. “As some tariffs have been reduced, we are lowering prices on affected items such as certain textiles, bedding, and cookware.”
Looking ahead, costs could rise again under an order from Trump on Thursday that would require items containing certain metals to be tariffed at their total import value, rather than a rate based on specific percentages of materials in a particular product.
A lot could change in the coming months and years as these policies are litigated, but one thing I don’t see is the price of this set coming all the way back down to pre-Trump prices.
