The Commerce Department's revelation of a 0.9% contraction in US retail sales for May, compounding April's 0.1% dip, has been largely imputed to a precipitous slump in automotive sales, a predictable correction following March's artificial inflation driven by consumers preempting President Trump's mooted 25% tariff imposition on imported vehicles and components; notwithstanding flagging consumer sentiment, persistently benign inflation coupled with robust employment figures may yet sustain a modicum of consumer expenditure in the near term, evidenced by a 0.4% uptick in core retail sales (excluding volatile sectors like gasoline, automobiles, and restaurants), hinting at residual discretionary purchasing power, further corroborated by discrete upticks in online retail, apparel, and furniture sectors amidst a broader tableau of sectoral decline, with the overarching deceleration increasingly attributed to anxieties surrounding price escalation engendered by the aforementioned tariff policies.