This is Planet Money from NPR.

Over the weekend, former Vice President Joe Biden became President-elect Joe Biden.

And when he takes office in January, he is going to inherit a trade policy full of tariffs

on steel, on aluminum, on wine and cheese, and on nearly three-quarters of everything that

we import from China.

Now these tariffs were imposed by President Trump in 2018, and they were a huge deal at

the time, and they continued to be, because the tariffs catapulted the US into a trade

war that experts say have ultimately damaged the US economy and hurt American workers.

In January, when Biden takes office, he will have the power to keep or not keep virtually

all of these tariffs.

But this was not always the case.

And in fact, there is a great story about how the President ended up with the power to

levy tariffs in the first place.

This is a story we originally ran in 2018, a story about the worst tariffs ever.

Bueller?

Bueller?

In the Venn diagram of iconic pop culture moments and critically important economics history

lessons.

There is an overlap of roughly 40 seconds.

So first, I guess I want to ask you, do you know this scene from Ferris Bueller?

Of course.

Doug Erwin, economist at Dartmouth.

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