Trump’s tariffs could remake world trade. The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip explains the president-elect’s plan and how the world is preparing. This episode was produced by Amanda Lewellyn and Haleema Shah, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Andrea Kristinsdottir and Rob Byers, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members President-elect Donald Trump and China's president Xi Jinping outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in 2017. Photo by Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
President Elect Trump was president elected because he promised Americans he'd fix the economy.
One plank of his platform, tariffs.
The word tariff, properly used, is a beautiful word.
A tariff is a tax on imported goods.
So tariffs on China mean that things coming from China will cost more.
Usually they'll cost you more.
Is more expensive good?
Donald Trump is making a genuinely interesting bet that you might decide it is.
I'll give you a perfectly good example, the minimum wage.
And when the minimum wage goes up, most of us will end up paying more for things like, you know, our hamburger or our dry cleaning.
And yet most of us vote for a higher minimum wage because we think it's fair.
And I think that you have to sort of look at tariffs the same way is that the people who are looking at Trump's plan and saying his plan means higher cost for me are also saying, but there's also a question for fairness here.
Is it fair that I get cheaper prices on everything?
But communities that depended on the production of the products that are now made in China are withering away and dying.
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