Businesses brace for tariff déjà vu
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The White House has proposed new tariffs on 60 countries that allegedly aren’t doing enough to ban forced labor. Domestic businesses, already burned from last year’s trade war, are bracing for more hurt. In this episode, companies weigh early orders against rising costs. Plus: Recent positive inflation data could convince the Fed to hold interest rates steady, Kroger buys Giant Eagle in ongoing effort to unseat Walmart as the supermarket market-share king, and parents sacrifice to put their kids through youth sports.
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Read the stories from today’s episode:
- Retailers map out tariff strategies
- The Fed digests an optimistic week for economic data
- Traditional supermarkets are struggling. Kroger hopes its Giant Eagle merger will help
- Business Botox: What it takes to sell a luxury home
- Youth sports have turned into a five-figure-a-year commitment for many parents
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you're keeping track, I think I've only said economic data like three times this week. |
| 0:09.4 | From American public media, this is Marketplace. |
| 0:19.1 | In Los Angeles, I'm Colin Rizzdahl. |
| 0:23.7 | It is Thursday today, the 16th of July. |
| 0:27.4 | Good as always to have you along, everybody. |
| 0:29.7 | Retail sales are where we begin today. |
| 0:32.2 | We are still buying stuff. |
| 0:34.1 | Thank you, American consumer. |
| 0:35.9 | But not as much as we had been buying. Thank you, |
| 0:39.7 | inflation, underlying unease. And, oh, yeah, don't forget tariffs, which have fallen out |
| 0:45.1 | of the headlines but are still very much a thing and might be becoming more of a thing |
| 0:49.9 | real soon. The White House announced new 25% tariffs on Brazil today, and there are more coming |
| 0:55.7 | to replace the president's tariff-palooza import taxes. But the Supreme Court said we're illegal. |
| 1:00.2 | They're coming soon, a couple of months, maybe. So as we brace for tariffs, I guess it's |
| 1:05.9 | 3.0 now, Marketplace's Supreme Beneshore gets us going with how businesses are coping this time |
| 1:11.9 | round. Even in the flower business, tariffs will find you. Flowers for Dreams is headquartered |
| 1:18.9 | in Chicago and does flower delivery and events across the Midwest. CEO Stephen Dime has been |
| 1:24.2 | bracing for changes to the tariff situation. |
| 1:28.1 | Yeah, we're starting to work on our winter menu, our Valentine's preparation. |
| 1:32.8 | We know we're going to be hit hard with tighter margins and some pricing pressure. |
| 1:36.7 | Then we're preparing for that because it happened last year. |
| 1:40.0 | Dime actually prefers to get his flowers from the Midwest. |
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