Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, so I'd like to tell you where you'll find more just like it.

I'm Izzy Lee Poulton, an assistant commissioner for BBC Sounds, which means I'm involved in the whole podcast making process.

Whether that's developing fresh formats or facilitating eye-catching artwork, I helped project manage all the details that make our podcast stand out.

At the BBC, we've got access to

storytellers and experts across a huge range of subjects. It could be psychologists, comedians,

celebrities or journalists, no podcast or day, looks the same here. So no matter what you like,

check out BBC Sounds. There's probably another podcast on there that you're absolutely

love.

Hello and thank you for downloading the more or less podcast. With a program that runs a deficit in deceitful data at a surplus in statistical accuracy. And I'm Tim Harford.

Now unless you've had your head stuck down a rabbit hole, and honestly, I envy you,

you will know that Wednesday the 2nd of April was Liberation Day, aka the day

the day President Trump dropped this economic bombshell on the planet.

In a few moments, I will sign a historic executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs on countries throughout the world. Reciprocal.

That means they do it to us and we do it to them. Very simple. It can't get any simpler than

that. For years, hardworking American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful,

much of it at our expense. But now it's our turn to prosper.

You're the largest economy in the world by most measures, but okay, the president came armed

with a lovely board that claimed to show the tariffs other countries impose on US goods and the new

tariff that the US will put on their goods. This reciprocal tariff is said to be only half of

what the US exporters must endure from those dastardly foreigners. They rip us off. It's so sad to

say. It's so pathetic. Right.

Now, some of these alleged tariffs are big, implausibly big.

...