Who pays for tariffs?
Marketplace
American Public Media
4.6 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 14 July 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Up and down the supply chain, companies are facing a dilemma: Should they absorb tariff surcharges and keep prices down, or pass on the cost to customers, and risk losing business? Most are taking a mixed approach. In this episode, how firms are negotiating — and communicating — higher costs. Plus: Economists discuss what they’ll be looking for in tomorrow’s CPI, housing discrimination persists in the fine print of home deeds, and economists attempt to model the U.S. economy’s debt forecast.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Our tariffs starting to bite yet? |
| 0:04.6 | We'll find out more this week. |
| 0:06.6 | From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. |
| 0:15.1 | In Baltimore, I'm Amy Scott in for Kai Rizdahl. It's Monday the 14th of July. Good to have you with us. President Trump said today he's open to negotiations with the European Union after announcing a 30% tariff on EU imports over the weekend. |
| 0:42.0 | It was the latest in a flurry of new tariffs the Trump administration has announced, |
| 0:44.6 | now set to kick in August 1st. |
| 0:50.9 | The big question since all the back and forth on tariffs began back in April has been what will it all mean for inflation. |
| 0:53.9 | Tomorrow we'll get the latest read with the Consumer Price Index for June, |
| 0:58.5 | followed by the producer price index on Wednesday. |
| 1:02.0 | Marketplaces Samantha Fields checked in with a few economists to see what they'll be watching for. |
| 1:07.6 | I don't think you'll be surprised by the big question on every economist's mind. |
| 1:12.4 | Are we going to see in the inflation report tomorrow signs that tariffs are starting to show up? |
| 1:19.9 | Kevin Jake's, a former financial economist at the Treasury Department, says analysts have been |
| 1:24.4 | watching for any rise in consumer prices for the last few months. |
| 1:28.1 | U.S. firms have done a really good job so far of absorbing some of that. |
| 1:34.3 | Many companies stockpiled inventory to avoid raising prices for as long as they can. |
| 1:39.1 | But Jake says there are things you can't really stockpile, like food, |
| 1:42.5 | and he'll be looking to see whether the cost of |
| 1:44.4 | imported fruits and vegetables is creeping up. Jed Kolko at the Peterson Institute for International |
| 1:49.7 | Economics will be looking more closely at the prices of core goods, things like cars, computers, |
| 1:55.2 | dishwashers, and clothes. Physical goods, aside from food and energy, because that's where we would expect price effects |
| 2:03.7 | from tariffs to show up most strongly. |
... |
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