This is Brian Lair's Daily Politics Podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Tuesday, April 1st.

I'm Matt Katz, former reporter here at WNYC in Gothamist. I'm now running a news podcast in Philadelphia called CityCast Philly, and I'm filling in for Brian through tomorrow.

Mark your calendars April 2nd, 2025.

That's the date President Trump is calling Liberation Day when his new tariffs are set to take effect.

The idea is that the U.S. will match the tariffs that other countries impose on American goods,

what the administration is calling reciprocal tariffs.

The goal, according to the White House, is to level the playing field for American businesses.

But critics warn it could raise prices for consumers and strain

relationships with U.S. trading partners. So what's actually going to happen when these tariffs

kick in? How might they affect industries, inflation, global trade? We'll ask Felix Salmon,

chief financial correspondent and Axios, host of the Slate Money podcast, and author of the Phoenix economy,

work, life, and money in the new not normal. Felix, welcome back to the show. Thank you very much.

It's great to be here. Excellent. I am looking forward to digging into this because I don't really

understand what's happening.

So let's start with what these.

Yeah, let's start with these reciprocal tariffs because that like you have to understand.

This is not like some kind of tit for tat situation where a whole bunch of other countries are tariffing the United States,

and it's been unfair and it's been asymmetrical,

and now Trump is just wanting to level the playing field.

Like that is not what is happening at all, right?

So, um, okay.

Trump has already imposed very large new tariffs in a bunch of sectors, including steel and aluminum.

...