ICE influencers, a world-record trade surplus, and the moon goes nuclear
The Indicator from Planet Money
NPR
4.7 • 9.5K Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s episode: Influencers for ICE, China’s tremendous trade surplus, and America heads back to the moon.
Related episodes:
We resolve to watch these 2026 indicators
China's trade war perspective
Who owns the moon?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | NPR. This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong. I'm Darian Woods, and we're joined |
| 0:17.1 | today by Planet Money's Sarah Gonzalez. Sarah, it has been too long. |
| 0:21.5 | It always feels too long. |
| 0:23.5 | Sarah, you truly could not have picked a more beautiful day to come into the indicator orbit |
| 0:29.2 | because today is Indicators of the Week. |
| 0:35.6 | This is the day of the week when we talk about the most interesting numbers from the news. |
| 0:40.8 | On today's episode, we're talking about the Trump administration's ICE recruitment strategy. |
| 0:46.1 | China's world record beating trade surplus. |
| 0:49.1 | And pack your dipping dots. |
| 0:51.0 | We're going back to the moon. |
| 0:52.7 | I'll bring some crackers for the cheese. |
| 1:01.8 | Indicators of the week, Sarah, you're first. |
| 1:04.6 | All right. |
| 1:05.1 | So my indicator of the week is $100 million. |
| 1:08.4 | That is how much the Trump administration has set aside to spend on a one-year, |
| 1:13.3 | so-called wartime recruitment strategy to hire more immigration and customs enforcement workers. |
| 1:19.3 | So this is all according to a document that the Washington Post got a hold of. |
| 1:23.2 | It says that immigration officials plan to flood the market with millions of dollars worth of social media ads and to pay pro-ice social media influencers and other online creators to normalize and humanize careers at ICE through storytelling and lived experiences. |
| 1:41.1 | That's a quote. |
| 1:42.1 | Well, they're already making these, right? |
| 1:44.0 | I mean, I've seen footage of |
| 1:45.9 | videographers trailing after agents, and then they put together these slick videos and post them on |
... |
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