Blame China?

On a special goodbye Worldly — it’s Yochi’s final episode, sadly — he, Jenn, and Zack talk about President Donald Trump’s looming trade war with China, which could soon make it more expensive to buy everything from an iPhone to an air conditioner. The US has imposed tens of billions of dollars worth of tariffs on Chinese imports, Beijing is hitting back, and it’s all heading in a pretty dangerous direction. On Elsewhere, the team says goodbye to Yochi, who’s returning to full-time writing, and celebrates what he’s done for the show. Someone was definitely cutting onions in the studio during the taping of this episode. Throughout the episode, we talk about what a trade war might mean. Zeeshan Aleem wrote a great explainer on this. Jenn walked us through the tariffs back and forth right at the top of the show. You can read more specifics about those tariffs here and here. The Verge also had a great piece about what this might mean for tech manufacturing. More context on the delegation that went to Beijing to talk about tariffs without much success. Here’s a piece that dives into Trump’s rhetoric about Asia and trade going back decades, and one that looks very specifically at what he said about Japan. When Zack said that some people call this IP theft the greatest theft in history, the exact quote was “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.” Yochi also talked about foreign agents and spying more generally.   Jenn mentioned that companies complain about Chinese trade practices. There’s a great Planet Money episode this week that touches on why those companies don’t necessarily say things explicitly. Here’s the piece that Zeeshan wrote a few months ago about disagreements between Trump advisers. Here’s the Washington Post piece about the navy hack and the submarine warfare intelligence that was gathered as a result. Yochi cited a few Republican lawmakers grilling Wilbur Ross on tariffs. Here’s a write up of that grilling, and here’s the full session on C-SPAN.   Yochi shouted out Zack’s writing on manufacturers who have been affected by China. Zack walked us through some of economist David Autor’s research on the effect US-China trade ties have had on American jobs.   We pulled a clip from Trump’s appearance on the Bernie and Sid show and from this interview with Larry Kudlow. And here’s the wild trailer for Death by China. For more trade war content, check out this great Today, Explained episode about the Chinese tariffs and this one, about the tariff fight we’re having with Mexico, Canada, and the EU. This episode of The Indicator and this episode The Daily are also great!   

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