By Alicia Wallace, CNN

(CNN) — US inflation heated back up in June, rising to its highest level in four months, as price increases — including those from tariffs — packed a bigger punch.

Consumer prices rose 0.3% last month, pushing the annual inflation rate higher to 2.7%, the highest since February, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Tuesday’s data came right in line with economists’ forecasts for the headline CPI to rise from the 0.1% monthly and 2.6% annual increases reported in May.

They expected higher gas prices would help lift the overall index (which was the case) and anticipated that a broader suite of goods would show the effect of businesses passing along higher import costs to consumers (which was also the case).

“Tariffs are starting to bite,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, told CNN in an interview. “It wasn’t as bad as expected, but you can see it in the data.”

Excluding gas and food, which tend to be quite volatile, core CPI came in below expectations by rising 0.2% from May and 2.9% for the 12 months ended in June. However, that’s an acceleration from 0.1% and 2.8%, respectively, the month before.

Stocks were mixed Tuesday morning. The Dow was down 250 points, or 0.5%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 was mostly flat and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.65%.

“While it’s a relief to see Tuesday’s CPI in line with expectations, it still showed that inflation was hotter in June than it was in May,” Skyler Weinand, chief investment officer at Regan Capital, said in an email.

A fits-and-starts trade policy makes its mark

In recent months, President Donald Trump has enacted a sweeping trade policy of tacking steep tariffs on most goods that come into America.

The sheer breadth of the tariffs as well as the fits-and-starts approach to their implementation has roiled markets and caused heightened uncertainty among businesses and consumers as to how much prices would move higher.

However, inflation has remained relatively tame in recent months due to a variety of factors, including ongoing disinflation trends in housing and other key services, falling gas and travel prices (in part due to weakened demand from uncertainty), and businesses loading up on pre-tariff inventories.

Economists cautioned that the tariff-related price hikes wouldn’t come quickly nor in one fell swoop and would likely start to hit consumers more as the year went on.

“It’s really been an inventory story,” Long said. “Businesses have done an excellent job of managing inventory, particularly the large retailers heading into April” when the bulk of the tariff hikes were put into place.

The larger retailers were carrying about three months’ worth of extra inventory, Long said.

“And so, you do the math in your head and you’re thinking, ‘OK, this summer, right?’” she said. “They’re eventually going to run out of inventory or run down their inventory and have to bring in more items with the tariff costs.”

How tariff-exposed goods prices are rising

On a relatively scattered basis, some items with high exposure to tariffs (the United States imports about 80% of toys from China, for example) have become more expensive, both private sector and federal reports such as CPI have shown.

In May, for example, the CPI report showed very few widespread impacts from higher tariffs; however, prices were on the rise for a smattering of goods — such as toys, appliances, sporting goods and tools — typically imported or heavily reliant upon imported materials and components.

Monthly economic data can be quite volatile, and economists frequently caution that it’s important to take a longer view. However, some of the pricing trends seen in May also showed up in June and, in some cases, in a bigger way.

Commodities excluding food and gas: This index strips out the oft-volatile food and energy categories and is being closely scrutinized in the wake of higher tariffs. Prices rose 0.2% in June after being flat in May.

Apparel: Trump’s tariffs were expected to raise the cost of most clothing, but the hardest hit items were expected to be some of the most basic (cheap T-shirts, socks, sneakers and undies). Overall apparel prices nudged up just 0.4% in June after declining in May and April.

Appliances: Prices here leapt 1.9% in June after rising 0.7% in April and 0.6% in May. It was the highest monthly jump in appliance prices since August 2020, when homebound Americans upped their purchases of home goods during the Covid pandemic. Last month, the Trump administration extended the 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum to “derivative products,” including consumer appliances such as dryers, washing machines, refrigerators, ovens and garbage disposals.

Computers, peripherals and smart home assistants: Prices heated up in this category for the third-consecutive month, rising 1.4%, the highest monthly increase since January 2024. While Trump gave a reprieve for tech giants, exempting some smartphones, computers and electronics from tariffs, those products and parts are still exposed to the higher base tariff on Chinese imports. (Notably, Trump also has promised to levy higher tariffs on semiconductors, the chips that power scores of everyday items.)

Sporting goods: The pace of price hikes accelerated here, with the index rising 1.4% in June, up from 0.3% in May. The June increase is the largest in 18 months.

Tools, hardware and supplies: During much of 2023 and 2024, prices fell for this category. In June, prices rose 0.7%, marking the fifth-straight month of increases.

Toys: For the second month in a row, prices rose by 1.4%, a back-to-back jump only seen during periods of abnormally high inflation (2022, 1980). And more price hikes could be coming down the pike, Hasbro CEO told CNN’s Audie Cornish this week.

Video equipment: Prices surged a record 4.5% in June after rising 1% in May in this category that typically has seen more deflation than inflation since 1998, when the BLS started tracking it.

Windows and floor coverings and other linens: After rising 0.3% from May to April, prices in this category surged 4.2% higher in June, a record-high increase (BLS started tracking this category in early 1999). The US textile industry has shrunk considerably in recent decades, resulting in a high reliance on imported linens.

‘This feels like inning No. 1’

The June CPI was expected to be a “turning point” where steep tariffs would make an even bigger mark within the inflation data.

However, the extent to which tariffs could drive inflation higher and how long that may last, remains an open question.

“We do have to bear in mind that goods are still only 25% of the core CPI, and so it takes a pretty meaningful increase in those goods prices to really lead to a spike in core inflation,” Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo, told CNN earlier this week.

The price increases seen on the goods side have been kept in check by disinflation (slower price increases) or deflation (outright price declines) in other components of the CPI — dynamics both long in swing prior to tariffs and others attributed to tariff-related fallout.

“I think you’re still seeing, in many ways, the long tail of the pandemic in the services numbers — things like auto insurance continuing to subside on trend as vehicle price inflation has cooled off” as well as housing-related price hikes, House said. “And in some ways, the recent inflation numbers have captured some of the downside effects on demand, for example, the drop in oil prices and the drop in travel services.”

Economists such a Navy Federal Credit Union’s Long cautioned that the tariff-related impacts remain early days.

“This feels like inning No. 1, the early stages of what will likely be more and more items showing that price increase,” she said.

She noted how prices on coffee and oranges — categories already hit hard by climate-related impacts and also expected to feel added price pressure from tariffs — spiked in June. Trump’s latest tariff threats on Canada and Mexico could reignite fears of higher food prices, she added.

“You don’t buy a new washing machine every week, but you do buy fruits and vegetables,” she said.

Trump on Tuesday cheered that consumer prices were low and White House officials downplayed the effect of tariffs on overall inflation. Trump urged for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates “now!”

“I think one thing that Wall Street, a lot of economists, (the) market in general, got wrong early on was that tariffs were going to cause a substantial price level rise, which just hasn’t happened,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview on Bloomberg prior to the CPI’s release Tuesday morning.

However, while the June CPI data “screams” that Fed officials will likely take a “wait and see” approach on further rate cuts when they meet later this month, there is some growing pressure for easing later this year, said Long, the Navy Federal Credit Union economist Long said.

“There is strain on the middle-class consumer right now and middle-class families: The housing market is frozen … the job market is frozen outside of a handful of sectors like healthcare,” she said. “And it would be really helpful to the overall economy to see the Federal Reserve take a little bit of pressure off in September. I know it’s a hard call looking at this data, but just from the middle-class perspective, some relief in September would be really helpful.”

The CPI report is the first of two major pieces of inflation data due out this week. On Wednesday morning, the BLS will release the Producer Price Index, which is expected to show a continued pickup in wholesale-level inflation.

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CNN’s John Towfighi and Elisabeth Buchwald contributed to this report.