NPR. This is the indicator from planet money. I'm Darren Woods. Two big campaign promises from

President-elect Trump were tax cuts and tariffs.

And specifically, the idea that the money generated from the tariffs will pay for the tax cuts.

Joining me to discuss all this is Kyla Scanlon,

economic commentator and author of In This Economy,

Kyla, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Darian.

So today you're joining us to talk about tariffs and tax cuts.

And cookies. That would explain these cookies, which I was told to bring into the studio. So I thought you were just being really generous.

No, those cookies are meant to explain trade policy because those cookies have ingredients from all over the world.

They might have cocoa beans, spices like

cinnamon or vanilla, and right now all those ingredients come in tax-free. But under these new

proposals from President-elect Trump, nearly everything coming into America would face big import

fees. Now, Trump says that other countries will pay these fees and not Americans, and that we

can make enough money from tariffs to cover all the tax cuts he's promising.

So how is the American consumer responding to all this?

Well, we surveyed some folks at a park in downtown Denver.

Yeah, I think that's a really bad idea.

I think maybe people haven't read enough about terrorists

and who actually pays for those terrorists in the long run.

And I'm thinking if we want to make any major purchases,

we should do that now before January 20th.

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