4.4 • 4.9K Ratings
🗓️ 7 August 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
As yet another tranche of Donald Trump’s tariffs takes effect, we look at why the duties might outlast him—and how American consumers will ultimately shoulder the trade war’s costs. Our correspondent visits US Space Command, which is preparing for a new age of combat in the heavens. And Gen Z’s obsession with big, personalised water bottles.
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0:00.0 | The Economist. |
0:10.1 | Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. |
0:13.2 | I'm your host, Jason Palmer. |
0:15.0 | Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
0:30.6 | We pay a visit to US Space Command, which is a cavernous layer inside a volcano. |
0:37.7 | Just kidding, it's an office building, but the kind of dramatic combat it's preparing for is straight out of the movies. |
0:44.1 | And you'll have noticed that young people are never without a ready supply of water, |
0:48.7 | often in an enormous bottle, which is often glammed up and personalized. |
0:52.4 | We look at what's behind this thirst for a liquid asset. |
1:02.7 | First up, though. Dozens and dozens of countries just got it in the neck. |
1:15.6 | Overnight, yet another trench of tariffs from the Trump administration came into effect. |
1:20.6 | On the social media site Mr. Trump owns, he posted, and you'll have to imagine the all caps here, |
1:25.6 | it's midnight, billions of dollars in tariffs are now flowing into the United States of America. |
1:31.3 | Which is true as far as it goes, but the bigger picture is far more complex and troubling. |
1:38.3 | Donald Trump thinks he's winning from all the tariffs that he's imposing on the world. |
1:46.8 | But he started something that America can only lose. |
1:51.1 | Rochina Shanboog is the economist's Business Affairs editor. |
1:56.6 | The long-term cost of these tariffs will only mount and America will pay. |
2:03.0 | So, Rochina, here we are once again talking about new trenches of tariffs. What's on the docket for today? |
2:09.4 | We've seen a range of tariffs come into force overnight. A set of them are the so-called reciprocal tariffs, which range from about 10 to 41% on a large number of America's trading partners. And the |
2:16.6 | idea behind this is that any country |
2:19.0 | running a trade deficit should be penalized because Donald Trump sees that as stealing from Americans. |
... |
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