On Harris’s Price-Gouging Ban, Allies and Foes May Have the Wrong Idea

Vice President Kamala Harris threw her support behind a federal ban on price-gouging in the food and grocery industries last week. It was the first official economic policy proposal of her presidential campaign, and it was pitched as a direct response to the high price of putting food on the table in America today.

“To combat high grocery costs, VP Harris to call for first-ever federal ban on corporate price-gouging,” the Harris campaign proclaimed in the subject line of a news release last week, ahead of a speech laying out the first planks of her economic agenda.

It is still impossible to say, from publicly available details, what exactly the ban would do. Republicans have denounced the proposal as “communist,” warning that it would lead to the federal government setting prices in the marketplace. Former President Donald J. Trump has mocked the plan on social media as “SOVIET Style Price Controls.”

Progressives have cheered the announcement as a crucial check on corporate greed, saying it could immediately benefit shoppers who have been stunned by a 20 percent rise in food costs since President Biden took office.

But people familiar with Ms. Harris’s thinking on the ban now say it might not resemble either of those characterizations. The ban, they also suggest, might actually not do anything to bring down grocery prices right now. Those who spoke about the strategy behind the emerging policy did so on the condition of anonymity.

Ms. Harris’s campaign has created the space for multiple interpretations, by declining to specify how that ban would work, when it would apply or what behaviors it would prohibit.