NPR. Pop quiz. What are the following things have in common?

Baggy jeans, vinyl records, dumbphones, and tariffs.

If you guessed things that went out of fashion, but are now cool again, you're correct.

That is right, and that last thing in the list, tariffs, essentially is a fancy term for import tax.

And we're focusing on tariffs today because judging by the two Americans running for president,

tariffs are hot right now. For example, Donald Trump has been saying, if reelected, he'd impose

a tariff of 60% or more on Chinese goods, plus higher tariffs on a lot of other countries.

I think when companies come in and they dump their products in the United States,

they should pay automatically, let's say a 10% tax.

Meanwhile, President Biden recently announced new tariffs on various Chinese products including solar cells and electric cars.

A 100% tariff on electric vehicles made in China. People say, wow. Because we're not going to let China flood our market.

And while tariffs appear to be the campaign promised azure,

this is far from the first time tariffs have been in

vogue.

This is the indicator for Planet Money. I'm Adrian Ma.

And I'm Darren Woods. Today on the show, a quick and dirty history of US tariffs, how they went from

being in fashion to out of fashion and back again.

And also why economists are concerned about the comeback of tariffs under Trump and Biden.

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Wise,

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With Wise, you can send and spend money internationally at the mid-market exchange rate, no

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