We'll do data today because sometimes you gotta.

Better up.

It's opening day.

And hey, how have you been sleeping?

From American public media.

This is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzdahl.

It is Wednesday, today 25 March.

Good as it always is, everybody, to have you along.

The data point of choice today is a tidbit from the Bureau of Labor Statistics called the U.S.

import and export price indexes.

It's the import side of that equation that's of most interest to us.

In February, those prices increased 1.3%.

That's more than anybody had been guessing.

And the biggest monthly increase since March of

2022. Year over year, the increase also 1.3%. Marketplace's Kristen Schwab gets us going with the

why and the wherefore. One funny thing about this data on import prices, says Orrin Klatchkin, an economist at Nationwide, is it shows the price of goods before businesses pay tariffs.

But all of the kind of secondary effects, if you will, all of the, you know, knock-on effects of tariffs, these are all visible in the data.

Business's front-loaded inventory and shifted supply

chains to avoid the highest taxes. And because of the uncertainty tariffs caused, the value of the

dollar has fallen. These are all things that make imports more expensive. Then there's a seasonal

quirk. We just had a really cold winter.

Laura Veldcamp is an economist at Columbia University.

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