Do trade deficits matter?

There’s a room where the fates of retail products are decided. Will they make it onto the shelves of the big box stores? Usually the rest of us can’t get inside the room where decisions are made – until now! Today on the show, we pitch the Planet Money game, Sell Me a Sasquatch, ...  Show more

This week’s stop on our world tour - Korea. A country divided into two very different power structures since the end of WWII. Today South Korea is the maker of some of the world’s favorite exports – from Samsung TV’s to BTS. But 75 years ago it was a much different story. How the ...  Show more

This week, President Trump acknowledged his tariffs were resulting in costlier items in the U.S., but maintained his position that China was taking the majority of the heat. If people can’t afford to buy as much, might that be a recipe for recession? We’ll discuss, and answer a l ...  Show more

In today's video we examine Donald Trump's plan to rebalance global trade using tariffs, try to understand the issues with international trade that have been pushing the United States and other countries in this protectionist direction, and if tariffs can be expected to improve t ...  Show more

Has Donald Trump's policy of imposing trade tariffs worked? He has signed a major trade deal with Japan, with Tokyo pledging to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the US. Could this open the way for similar deals with other countries? And what does it all mean for the glob ...  Show more

President Donald Trump thinks that Asia's goods exports are automatically America's loss and as part of his ‘reciprocal’ tariff policy, he has imposed some of the highest import taxes on goods from south-east Asia. So what does this mean for the region? And are Trump's policies p ...  Show more