The

The Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood, a return to

normalcy today,

two guests, two segments. We'll hear from Vijay Prashad, in an interview keyed in part to Mayday,

and then from Becker Rothfeld, who thinks things are too small. Before that, a few words in the news.

Regular listeners know that I'm no fan of Trump's tariffs. Tariffs can be useful in small

targeted doses if you're

trying to build up a new industry. This is especially true for poorer countries, though it's

possible to imagine a rich country like the U.S. using them as part of an re-industrialization

strategy. But tariffs alone won't do the trick. You need a serious industrial policy as well,

meaning serious planning to make it work.

Trump's tariffs will just raise prices and lead to a sharp fall in imports of products that we

just don't make here, from Chotchkes to sophisticated electronics. On Wednesday, the first take on

first quarter GDP came out, reporting the first decline since the COVID quarters. Before that,

you'd have to go back to 2014 to find another minus sign. The reason was a surge in imports.

In national income accounting, imports are treated as a subtraction for GDP, which were

quickly stockpiled in advance to the tariffs. Exports were weak. But it wasn't just that,

spending on durable goods, appliances, vehicles,

things designed to last a while, declined after adjusting for inflation. Trump says better days

are ahead, but with tariffs beginning to bite and shipping traffic to the U.S. in steep decline,

we're going to see soaring prices, bare shells, and layoffs within weeks.

Trump says it's Biden's fault, of course, but it's not clear how.

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