After Liberation Day: Who is footing the tariffs bill?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 29 March 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For nearly 12 months, a raft of import duties - tariffs - have made it much more expensive to ship consumer goods into the United States. They have shaken up global trade and according to the Federal Reserve, significantly raised inflation. But who is really footing the bill for all of them?
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Presenter: Ed Butler Producers: Rebecca Smyllie and Craig Henderson
Business Daily is the home of in-depth audio journalism devoted to the world of money and work. From small startup stories to big corporate takeovers, global economic shifts to trends in technology, we look at the key figures, ideas and events shaping business.
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(Photo: US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on reciprocal tariffs as US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick holds a chart during a Make America Wealthy Again event at the White House, Washington DC, 2 April 2025. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.7 | Hi there, I'm Ed Butler. |
| 0:08.4 | Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:11.8 | It's nearly a year now since Donald Trump's self-titled Liberation Day, |
| 0:16.5 | the day that the president imposed sweeping tariffs on countries around the world. |
| 0:21.3 | My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day, waiting for a long time. |
| 0:29.2 | April 2nd, 2025 will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, |
| 0:36.8 | the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we |
| 0:41.1 | began to make America wealthy again. |
| 0:45.8 | The aim, President Trump said, was to level the playing field. But what has a year of tariffs done |
| 0:51.6 | to U.S. firms reliant on imports? And more specifically, |
| 0:55.8 | who's been paying for them? |
| 0:57.0 | U.S. consumers are paying for tariffs. So a manufacturer will pass on to the wholesaler, |
| 1:02.3 | to the retailer, and ultimately the consumer. |
| 1:05.2 | Pricing a year of Trump's tariffs. That's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:12.9 | For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, |
| 1:19.2 | both friend and foe alike. Donald Trump has always been fond of tariffs. And for his second term |
| 1:25.4 | in office, he's made them an economic priority, which will, |
| 1:29.3 | as he sees it, right, past wrongs. American steelworkers, auto workers, farmers and skilled |
| 1:35.8 | craftsmen, they watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked |
| 1:43.1 | our factories and foreign scavengers have torn |
| 1:46.6 | apart our once beautiful American dream. He called April the second last year Liberation Day, |
... |
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