Why a port dispute could snarl America’s supply chain
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 2 January 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
We’re 18 days until Donald Trump’s second term in office and 13 days away from another potential dockworkers’ strike. Workers at East and Gulf Coast ports briefly went on strike in October, but reached a partial deal and agreed to keep talking until Jan. 15. We’ll hear what’s left to hammer out. Also on today’s show: We’re swiftly approaching the debt ceiling, and it’s been a relatively muted day for foreign markets.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From all of us at Marketplace, we wanted to say, happy new year, and give a special thanks to everyone who stepped up to donate and helped get us ready for what will be a busy news year ahead. |
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| 0:19.2 | If you didn't have a chance to donate yet, |
| 0:21.1 | it's never too late to support the information you rely on. Give now at marketplace.org |
| 0:27.3 | slash donate. America right now is like the 1990s Spike Jones movie, Being John Malkovich, |
| 0:34.6 | in which the ceiling is always uncomfortably low, in this case the federal |
| 0:38.9 | debt ceiling. I'm David Brancaccio. The U.S. government cannot borrow more starting not today, |
| 0:45.1 | but quite soon. Financial players seem to be blowing this off today, but experts say pay attention. |
| 0:51.2 | Let's get a longer-term view from Diane Swank, the chief economist at the audit tax and advisory firm, KPMG. Hi, happy new year. |
| 0:59.1 | Happy New Year. |
| 1:00.1 | The debt ceiling. The Treasury Secretary of the United States says it's a little bit of wiggle room, so we're not going to bump up against it today, but later in the month it looks like, right? |
| 1:11.2 | Yes, we're going to have to start with the Treasury terms, extraordinary measures, to |
| 1:15.7 | service our debt obligations, and that is on spending we've already approved. |
| 1:20.6 | Congress has already approved, starting about mid to late January. |
| 1:24.6 | Now, when we run out of those extraordinary measures and the way to do it is an unknown, |
| 1:30.0 | most think we can do it until late spring, and then there becomes the threat of actually |
| 1:35.4 | breaching the debt ceiling, which would mean a default on our debt. |
| 1:40.2 | You've considered this. I've covered it repeatedly over the years, And most of our stories end with it would be uncharted territory. The situation would be unpredictable. |
| 1:50.9 | Exactly. And actually catastrophic if we actually defaulted on our debt. And that's why it's so concerning. It is something that, you know, financial markets that sort of shrug their shoulders over now because we've played with it so many times. |
| 2:04.5 | However, it is important to note that every time we've come up close to the debt ceiling and threatened to default, |
| 2:11.4 | that we've started to see downgrades in our debt starting in 2011. |
| 2:16.1 | And we now only have one rating agency that rates us at the top |
... |
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