What Next | Yes, Shelves Will Be Empty

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The consequences of Donald Trump’s new tariffs are working their way through the supply chain and soon will start showing up for consumers in the form of empty shelves, higher prices, and potentially even layoffs and a recession. Guest: Christopher Mims, Wall Street Journal tech reporter and the author of Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door---Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy. Jessica Berger, CEO of Bundle x Joy. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, Isabel Angell, and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm making a robot head with an Amazon box.
0:03.0	I've painted it silver and Daddy helped me make it.
0:05.0	At Amazon, we're actually using paper bags for more of our deliveries.
0:08.0	And now I'm making a paper hot air balloon
0:11.0	and I even made a little brown basket
0:13.0	and I'm making a dog that looks just like Monty.
0:16.0	Just one of the ways we've reduced the weight of our packaging by more than 40% since 2015,
0:20.0	which is still good for playtime.
0:22.6	Mom, where's the scissors? To learn more, visit about amazon.com.com.com at UK forward slash
0:29.0	sustainability. Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for
0:34.0	entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business
0:38.9	with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand, marketing tools that get your
0:43.7	products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time, from startups to scale
0:48.8	up online, in person and on the go. Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you.
0:58.7	Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.
1:10.7	Christopher Mims is a very specific kind of nerd.
1:11.5	I can say that because he says it about himself.
1:14.5	His expertise is logistics, how goods get from one place to another.
1:19.8	When I walk into Target or I buy something on Amazon,
1:23.0	sometimes it's like a crazy flashback scene in a movie.
1:26.3	I will kind of rewind the tape of how that object
1:30.2	got to me or arrived on that shelf. Christopher wrote a book about the supply chains that undergird
	...

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