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This Marketplace podcast is supported by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. America is an aspirational idea, one we're still working to fulfill, shaped by enlightenment ideals, reason, liberty and freedom of conscience, the belief that power comes from we the people, not a divinely appointed ruler. And while these ideals have not yet been fully perfected, they created something powerful, a framework that has expanded rights and freedoms over time. Now those freedoms and your rights are under attack. We're seeing growing efforts to blur the line between church and state, public funds to promote religion, Ten Commandments and Clause classrooms, and pushing a version of America that leaves out too many people. As our Nation approaches its 250th anniversary, the Freedom From Religion foundation is working to protect the Constitution, defend secular government, and ensure that freedom continues to expand for everyone. Because America isn't just where we started, it's what we choose next. Go to FFRF US America or text America to 51151 1America to 5115 1. Text fees may apply.
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Right now you can help unlock $25,000 from the Marketplace Investors Challenge Fund. That means your support for the Marketplace Morning Report can go even further, helping keep trusted economic reporting free for everyone. You can answer the call of the Marketplace investors who gave extra to the challenge fund. Contribute one of the 500 gifts that's needed by Friday to unlock that $25,000 in extra funding. You can donate now at marketplace.org or or click the link in the show. Notes. Illegal Tariffs Round two from Marketplace, I'm Sabri Ben ashore in New York. You might remember how many of President Trump's tariffs were struck down by the Supreme Court earlier this year, and the administration then whipped up new tariffs to replace them. Well, the US Court of International Trade has ruled the new tariffs are also illegal. These tariffs were set to expire in July anyway, and it's a narrow ruling blocking the import taxes for just two companies in the state of Washington. Stephen Brown is here to talk about it. He's chief North America economist at Capital Economics. Good morning.
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Hey, good morning.
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These tariffs were just kind of placeholder tariffs while the administration figures out the next round of tariffs it's going to impose. Do we know what those are going to look like?
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Originally, the Trump administration used something called ipa, which essentially gave it a huge amount of flexibility to impose tariffs on any country, any product. At any rate. After these section 122, it's going to lean on another section 301. That means they have to find some sort of unfair trade practices. So there's two investigations ongoing, which are related to kind of alleged excess manufacturing production capacity in some countries, which would certainly be fair in some cases, particularly China, for example. And then another one relating to the idea that countries aren't doing enough to put their own trade restrictions on countries that are using forced labor. But essentially these investigations cover over 60 countries. I think the Trump administration is going to try to impose a blanket tariff on all those countries based on its preliminary findings. So it's going to be very hard to do a proper investigation. And by extension, it's going to be quite easy for them to leave themselves open to kind of legal pushback.
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The first time the Trump administration's tariffs were challenged, a lot of people saw the writing on the wall that there was a good chance that the Supreme Court would strike them down. Is it as clear this time around? I mean, how do we think the appeal is going to go?
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Certainly the commentary I've seen suggests that it's nowhere near as clear cut. And indeed, I think we got a sense of that in the Court of International Trades ruling in that two of the judges kind of focused on this idea that the justification for tariffs under section 122 is very narrow, whereas the other judge, who was a Bush appointee, said at this stage they shouldn't be kind of second guessing the executive's justification of these tariffs if Congress has given them the power. So I think that gets on the point that if we do get all the way up to the Supreme Court, then given the Supreme Court is stacked in the Republicans favor, there's probably a good chance that the Supreme Court would rule in favor of the Trump administration and ultimately keep these tariffs.
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Stephen Brown, chief North America economist at Capital Economics, thank you so much.
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Thank you very much.
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There are 16 host cities for the 2026 FIFA World cup, and 11 of those metro areas will be in the U.S. many businesses are hoping this will bring waves of fans at a time when tourism to the US has been falling. So far, hotels in some cities like Atlanta and Miami are reporting demand is even better than expected. But other markets, including Kansas City, are saying demand is not as strong as they'd hoped. This is according to a report from the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Marketplace's Carla Javier called up some hotels.
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At the Fontaine Hotel in Kansas City, general manager Steven Jenkins expected more bookings starting in February or so.
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I think we may have been slightly too optimistic with our outlook in the sense of timing.
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In fact, bookings just started picking up more recently.
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We've probably doubled our occupancy over the past three to four weeks or so, which has been a nice relief for us here.
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Jenkins says the hotel adjusted its marketing strategy, targeting potential guests in the Midwest who can drive in more last minute.
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To be completely frank, it may cause us an extra gray hair or two, but as long as we're able to do all we can to capture those bookings, then we will be just fine.
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Stay Pineapple operates hotels in a handful of the World cup cities, including Seattle, Boston, New York and San Francisco. President Dina Belland says currently we're tracking
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about 10% above what we anticipated and
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budgeted for, though she says those expectations were already fairly reserved.
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There's multiple things going on in the world right now that are just suppressing demand. The war in Iran, the gas prices. Overall inbound travel into the US Internationally is down.
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And as Balon points out, some bookings will just have to be last minute because who might want to watch, say, the July 6 match in Seattle will depend on which teams make it that far. I'm Carla Javier for Marketplace.
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The US economy added 115,000 jobs in April, more than expected. The unemployment rate stayed the same at 4.3%. Markets seem happy about it. Let's do the numbers. The Dow is up 80 points. That's 2. 10 of a percent. The S&P 500 is up 6. 10%. The NASDAQ and is up 1.2%.
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This Marketplace podcast is supported by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. America is an aspirational idea, one we're still working to fulfill. Shaped by enlightenment ideals, Reason, liberty and freedom. Freedom of conscience. The belief that power comes from we the people, not a divinely appointed ruler. And while these ideals have not yet been fully perfected, they created something powerful. A framework that has expanded rights and freedoms over time. Now those freedoms and your rights are under attack. We're seeing growing efforts to blur the line between church and state, public funds to promote religion, 10 Commandments in classrooms, and pushing a version of America that leaves out too many people. As our Nation approaches its 250th anniversary, the Freedom From Religion foundation is working to protect the Constitution, defend secular government, and ensure that freedom continues to expand for everyone. Because America isn't just where we started, it's what we choose next. Go to FFRF US America or text America to 511-511-America to 511-51-511 text fees may apply.
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The US government has been trying to attract foreign investment since the beginning. Alexander Hamilton, as early as 1791 tried to convince to finance infrastructure development and businesses in the U.S. president Trump has also pressured foreign countries to invest here, sometimes with more of a stick approach, literally by threatening them with tariffs, but also with good old marketing. For decades, the federal government has been putting on the Select USA Investment Summit. It's kind of like a giant trade show with rows and rows of booths where states and businesses and startups all strut their stuff and try to attract foreign investors. The investment summit wrapped up this week, and Marketplace's Nancy Marshall Genser was there and filed this report.
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First thing you see when you walk into the vast exhibition hall at the Select USA Investment Summit giant colorful booths from states that paid top dollar for extra space. At the front, Idaho's smaller booth is about halfway back there you'll find Jan Rogers, head of the Southern Idaho Economic Development Organization. Rogers has been to almost every investment summit since they started back during the Obama administration. I have absolutely seen it all. Rogers says tariffs aren't nixing any of the deals she's lined up with foreign investors so far. Even for a French company paying high tariffs to import packaging machines into Idaho, I don't know what the pain point has to be. But they continue to move forward. No matter what, Rogers says. The US Is still still seen as a stable environment, the place to be. Even countries that are part of the Trump administration's travel ban are represented here. Kassim Bagayoko is part of a large delegation from Mali. Their ambassador had to wrangle special visas for them. Bagayoko would like to set up a business importing rare earths from Mali into the US but with the travel ban,
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you can incorporate, you can employ people, but you can't come to see your customers or at least have meetings with your staff.
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Magell is hoping the visa policy will change so he can open up a US Office. This investment summit is all about that type of greenfield investment, foreign companies opening factories or branches here. But most foreign investment in the US Comes from mergers and acquisitions, and many of those are in limbo because of the uncertainty of tariffs and the war in the Middle East. That's what Teruku Wada told me as she rushed to a meeting just outside the noisy hall. She's head of Keidanron usa, the US Wing of the Japan Business Federation, and she speaks regularly with Japanese executives.
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They're carefully watching when to invest and where to invest.
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Jonathan Samford heads up the Global Business Alliance, a trade association for foreign investors. He says mergers and acquisitions make up about 60% of foreign investment in developed economies like the U.S. and he's also seeing hesitation.
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Many foreign executives ask themselves what is happening in Washington today on a near daily basis.
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In fact, the Global Business alliance crunched some preliminary data from the Commerce Department and found that total foreign direct Investment in the U.S. last year was $288 billion, down 1% from 2024. I'm Nancy Marshall Genzer for Marketplace, and
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in New York, I'm Sabri Benishore, and you've been listening to the Marketplace Morning report. From apm, American Public Media.
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There's so much happening in the world, and if you have particularly, shall we say, inquisitive kids, it can be hard to answer their questions.
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Hi, I'm Ryan.
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And I'm Bridget. And we host Million Bazillion, a podcast from Marketplace about money for kids and their families. We help your little ones think big about important but tricky topics like taxes, gas prices, and even what a cashless society might be like.
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There's a bunch of new episodes out now, so go listen to Million Bazillion on your favorite podcast app.