This is But Why? A podcast for Curious Kids from Vermont Public.

I'm Jane Lindholm.

On this show, we take questions from curious kids just like you, and we find answers.

Sometimes you send us questions about things that are happening out in the world right now.

We call those current events. And even if you aren't watching

or listening to the news every day on your own or reading all the newspapers and online news

sites, you're probably getting information about current events from school, friends, adults

talking around you when they think you're not listening? Or maybe because you do pay attention to the

news. So one thing that may have trickled down to you lately is a word that doesn't really come up

in normal conversation, but is everywhere lately. Tariffs. Tariffs are in the news a lot right now. There's

been talk about the U.S. government imposing new tariffs on

two of our neighboring countries, Canada and Mexico, and other places like countries in Europe.

And there are already new tariffs on another country that America gets a lot of stuff from, China.

But what is a tariff? We're going to find out today, and we're going to explore the idea of taxes, which are connected to tariffs, and the economy more broadly. And then maybe when you read or see or hear news stories about economic issues in the future, you'll be armed with a little more knowledge about what's being discussed.

Here to help us navigate these choppy economic waters is my friend Stacey Vanek-Smith.

She's a business reporter, so she writes and thinks about these topics all the time.

I look at all the things that we deal with about money and the economy and things that we buy and the prices that we pay and I ask questions about those. I try to understand them myself

and then explain them. My name is James. I live in Wilmington, North Carolina. I am seven

years old. My question is, what is economics?

Before we get into tariffs, we need to understand economics. Economics is the study of the economy.

So, what's the economy? The economy is basically like this little ecosystem that we all live in of things that are

bought and sold around us.

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