Hey there podcast listeners it's Stephen Dubner. Before we get on to today's show how would

you like to come see some Frekenomics radio in person live on stage. We'll be taping

four episodes of our live journalism game show. Tell me something I don't know. In New

York City on October 19th and 20th at Joe's Pub. Every show is different so feel free to

come to all four. We've got an amazing lineup of co-hosts and fact checkers including Angela

Duckworth, Alex Gornacelle, Christian Finnegan, Manusha Zamorodi, AJ Jacobs, Mike Mawn and

Alexandra Petri. Guests from the audience will come on stage and try to wow us with some

fascinating Frekenomical information. We guarantee you'll learn a lot and laugh even more.

For tickets more information go to Frekenomics.com slash TMS IDK. That stands for Tell Me Something

I Don't Know Again, it's Frekenomics.com slash TMS IDK. Hope to see you there. Okay on to

today's episode. So are we in a trade war yet? Well, define a trade war and I'll give

you that answer. Yeah. For the past several months the United States has been trying to

gain some leverage with its trading partners. The president slapping new tariffs on steel

and aluminum imports from America's closest neighbors and allies. Sometimes it gets a bit rough.

Canadians are polite, we're reasonable but we also will not be pushed around. Just this

week a new trade deal was struck with our polite Canadian friends and with Mexico. We have

successfully completed negotiations on a brand new deal to terminate and replace NAFTA and

the NAFTA trade agreements with an incredible new US, Mexico, Canada agreement called US

MCA sort of just works MCA. But the aggressive trade renegotiations have continued, especially

with America's biggest frenemy. We can't continue to allow China to rape our country and that's

what they're doing. It's the greatest theft in the history of the world. China is imposing

new tariffs on US goods today after President Trump put tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese

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