It’s not a bad time to be a job hunter right now
Marketplace Morning Report
Marketplace
4.5 • 927 Ratings
🗓️ 4 February 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There was a surge of job creation in December — 250,000 more people showed up on payrolls that month. After unemployment rose in the first half of last year, job-seekers are starting 2025 in a pretty good place. We’ll hear more. Plus, China strikes back against U.S. tariffs, and President Donald Trump wants Panama to make immediate changes to what he calls the “influence and control” of China over Panama’s Canal.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | China shows two can play at the tariff game. |
| 0:05.0 | I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. Mexico and Canada got 30-day delays in U.S. tariffs, |
| 0:10.6 | but the Trump administration's additional 10% import tax on goods from China went into effect overnight. |
| 0:17.4 | The administration says it's in part about pushing China to curb the flow of chemicals used to make the widely abused drug fentanyl. China hit back today with targeted tariffs, some at 15%. Marketplaces China correspondent Jennifer Pack reports from Shanghai. |
| 0:33.4 | Minutes after the U.S. tariffs on Chinese exports came into effect, China announced its own counter tariffs on a limited number of American products. |
| 0:42.5 | Starting February 10th, things like U.S. coal, crude oil, and farm equipment will face an extra 10 to 15% duty. |
| 0:50.0 | China does not import as much from the U.S. as the U.S. does from China, so Chinese officials have also hit back in other ways. |
| 0:57.9 | They've launched an anti-monopoly probe into Google, placed two other U.S. firms on a list for potential sanctions. |
| 1:04.8 | Separately, China has announced export controls on five additional critical metals, including tungsten, |
| 1:12.4 | which could hurt American electronics, solar panel, and military equipment production. In Shanghai, I'm Jennifer Pack for |
| 1:18.3 | Marketplace. Marco Rubio is on his first trip abroad as Secretary of State six days in Latin |
| 1:23.9 | America, beginning in Panama. President Trump wants Panama to make immediate changes to |
| 1:28.8 | what it calls the influence and control of China over their canal. The BBC's Tom Bateman filed this from |
| 1:35.2 | Panama. There we go. He's saying hello to us? Yeah, he's saying hello to the president. To you? |
| 1:42.1 | Yeah. Donald Trump's sudden policy pronouncement has hit Panama like the bulk carriers that blast |
| 1:48.0 | their way up the canal. |
| 1:49.6 | We're on the locks of the Pacific side entrance, hearing from workers, where Mr Trump has claimed |
| 1:54.9 | the canal is being run by China. |
| 1:57.2 | The waterway is in fact owned and run by the Panamanian government under a neutrality treaty |
| 2:02.6 | signed with the U.S. decades ago, but Chinese companies have invested heavily in two of the five ports nearby. |
| 2:13.6 | Next to the canal, I meet Edwin Cabrera, a former Panama congressman. |
| 2:19.7 | He's worried. |
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