In President Donald Trump's telling, tariffs are the political equivalent of duct tape: you can use them to fix anything.
For example, they're a negotiating tool — he used the threat of tariffs to pressure Canada and Mexico to implement border policies he liked. He also sees tariffs as a revenue source that might help offset his proposed $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and as a shield to protect American manufacturing jobs from overseas competition.
With all of these potentially conflicting aims, and with another major round of tariffs expected to be announced on Wednesday, what is the strategy behind them?
Rana Foroohar, a Financial Times columnist and the author of Homecoming: The Path to Prosperity in a Post-Global World, says they're an "experiment" that could lead to a big change in the way the global economy works.
For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
Email us at considerthis@npr.org.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Плейлист
Consider This from NPR
An NPR investigation has been following President Trump's efforts to retaliate against his perceived enemies since he returned to the Oval Office in January. NPR's Tom Dreisbach found that Trump's tar...
About one in 31 children in the U.S. has been identified with autism spectrum disorder, according to CDC data released this month.When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discuss...
U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war and threats to make Canada the 51st state have become some of the biggest issues facing Canadians as they head to the polls in their federal election on April 2...
Long before he was elected to run the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis was essentially exiled from his Argentinian Jesuit order. Francis often referred to this two-year period, which happened when...
Whether a "chainsaw," per Elon Musk, or "scalpel," as President Trump has said — the Trump administration is making deep cuts to the federal government within its first 100 days.And Trump has appointe...
When you think of a successful protest movement, most Americans probably think of the American Civil Rights movement, and the March on Washington in 1963.Martin Luther King, Jr. standing behind a podi...
On March 23, the death toll in Gaza surpassed 50,000 people killed by Israeli fire in the war with Hamas.This is the story of 15 people who were killed the same day. There were airstrikes across the t...
What does it take to keep the economy stable? That is a question that Jerome Powell considers every day in his role as Chair of the Federal Reserve. It's also a role that is meant to be done independe...
On Monday morning in Rome Cardinal Kevin Farrell Camerlengo or Cardinal Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church announced the death of Pope Francis I.That was followed some 17 hours later by the rite of...
Viktor Orban is in his fourth consecutive term as Prime Minister of Hungary. In that time, he has dismantled democratic checks and balances, taken control of the country's media, civil society and uni...
This week, two federal judges handling separate immigration cases escalated their attempts to get the Trump administration to comply with court orders.One case involves President Trump's use of the Al...
When it comes to the cost of raising a child from infancy to the age of 17 in the United States – it's hard to settle on a precise figure.There's one thing we do know – it's going to be expensive. By...
The Trump administration's move to send immigrants to a maximum security prison in El Salvador is the subject of multiple on-going fights in court. But in an Oval Office meeting with the Salvadoran pr...
President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency team, or DOGE, appears to be grabbing sensitive data from all over the government. A whistleblower has come forward by filing an official disclosu...
Measles is an extremely contagious disease. It's also extremely preventable. There's a vaccine. It's highly effective. For decades it has made measles outbreaks in the U.S. relatively rare, and measle...
The Trump administration admitted that it wrongfully deported a man named Kilmar Abrego Garcia.It had also been arguing that courts cannot compel the U.S. government to return him to this country.The...
For weeks, President Trump has been targeting certain law firms with executive orders. Some have fought back, but others have cut deals to avoid the damage. For our weekly Reporter's Notebook series,...
During his second Presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed to carry out the largest deportation program the U.S. has ever seen.And true to his word – Trump's administration is arresting, detaining a...
It's pretty rare for one person to do one thing that affects nearly every business in the United States. But that's the power of the presidency and the new tariffs that took effect this week. Over the...
After a week of market turmoil, President Trump announced he would reset his most extreme tariffs to 10 percent across the board, with the exception of China — which he boosted to a 125% tariff rate....
It's been 25 years since measles was officially "eliminated" from the United States. That's a technical term. In public health, it means measles has not had a steady twelve month spread. Right now the...
Billionaire Elon Musk told Fox News recently that falling birth rates keep him up at night. It's a drum he's been beating for years.Musk is one of the world's most visible individuals to elevate this...
Deportation is a complicated process — with lots of layers. As the Trump administration expands the number and scope of deportations – what does that mean in practice? NPR's Asma Khalid and Ximena B...
The video game industry is huge. Last year alone it generated an estimated $187 billion dollars in revenue. But it's also facing a host of serious issues: massive layoffs, the advent of A.I., games th...
The country of Myanmar has been in crisis for years. A civil war has been going on since 2021. And then, last Friday, a devastating earthquake hit, leaving at least 3,000 people dead. The tragedy only...
Whatever you think of President Trump's tariffs, there's one point you have to concede: his interest in them is not a passing whim. He noted that on Wednesday, in the Rose Garden, when he was announci...
Eight-point-seven billion. Four-hundred million. One-hundred-seventy-five million. These are just some examples of the money the federal government has withheld or is threatening to withhold from vari...
In President Donald Trump's telling, tariffs are the political equivalent of duct tape: you can use them to fix anything. For example, they're a negotiating tool — he used the threat of tariffs to pre...
Last week, South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that Korean adoption agencies were responsible for widespread fraud, malpractice and even human rights violations. More than 140,000...
The AI boom has caused a huge surge in energy consumption, so how is the tech industry thinking about its environmental footprint as it invests in new AI models? Emily Kwong, host and reporter for NPR...