2490 - Trump Tries to Justify the Impact of Tariffs w/ Todd Tucker

Summary

Summary of Podcast Episode: "Trump Tries to Justify the Impact of Tariffs w/ Todd Tucker"

The Majority Report with Sam Seder Episode 2490, released on May 5, 2025, delves deep into the tumultuous landscape of U.S. trade policies under former President Donald Trump, focusing primarily on his contentious tariff strategies. Host Sam Cedar engages with Todd Tucker, the Director of Industrial Policy and Trade at the Roosevelt Institute, to dissect the implications of Trump's unilateral tariff impositions and their broader impact on the American economy.

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1. Introduction to the Trade Turmoil

The episode opens with Sam Cedar setting the stage for a critical discussion on Donald Trump's recent tariff announcements. He highlights Trump's decision to impose tariffs on foreign films, an unconventional move that has stirred both economic and political debates. Cedar introduces Todd Tucker as the expert guest to provide insightful analysis on these developments.

2. Historical Context: From Smoot-Hawley to Modern Protectionism

Todd Tucker traces the roots of U.S. trade policy back to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, noting its significant role in exacerbating the Great Depression. He emphasizes that Trump's recent actions represent the most disruptive trade policy since that era. Tucker explains:

“Smoot Hawley was this tariff that was passed in 1930... it was the last time the US engaged in protectionism at all close to this level” (20:46).

3. The Evolution of U.S. Trade Policy

Tucker outlines the shift from protectionist policies to trade liberalization over the decades, culminating in agreements like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He critiques how these agreements favored capital over labor, leading to wage disparities and weakened unionization in the U.S.

“Through these trade agreements, companies were able... keep countries in line for much of that neoliberal period” (24:04).

4. Trump's Tariff Strategy: Chaos Over Commerce

The discussion shifts to Trump's implementation of tariffs without a coherent strategy. Tucker contrasts this with the Biden administration's "smart tariffs," which complemented industrial policies aimed at bolstering domestic industries such as clean energy and semiconductors.

“The smart alternative... included tariffs as a backstop to industrial policy” (28:15).

He criticizes Trump's approach as arbitrary and destabilizing, citing the lack of rationale behind varying tariff rates across different countries and industries.

5. Economic Implications: Supply Chain Disruptions and Inflation

Tucker elaborates on the immediate and long-term economic consequences of Trump's tariff policies. He warns of supply chain bottlenecks, increased production costs, and potential layoffs as businesses grapple with unpredictability.

“There's just no sense of rational for anybody else to do” (33:14).

The host and guest discuss how tariffs on low-cost goods disproportionately affect poorer communities, referencing the expiration of the de minimis exemption, which previously allowed goods under $800 to enter the U.S. without tariffs. This change threatens to inflate prices on essential and affordable products.

6. Legal Authority and Potential Challenges

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to understanding the legal framework underpinning Trump's tariff actions. Tucker explains that Trump is utilizing the International Economic Emergencies Authorities (IEPA) Act, a broad statute rarely used for such extensive tariff measures.

“This has been in place... areas where Trump could get legislation through Congress and revise that and dial it back, Congress hasn't” (48:29).

He anticipates numerous legal battles as the administration's actions may face challenges in courts, although he remains skeptical about the courts' willingness to overturn these executive actions given the statute's expansive wording.

7. Projected Outcomes: Economic Slowdown and Uncertainty

Tucker forecasts a likely slowdown in economic activity due to the unpredictability of tariff implementations. He emphasizes that without a clear and consistent policy, businesses are hesitant to invest, leading to halted projects and potential recessions.

“We're asking Americans to make a huge sacrifice here, but without any clear vision of what ultimately that sacrifice is for” (40:17).

Additionally, the potential expiration of reciprocal tariffs by July 8th introduces further uncertainty, complicating long-term planning for industries reliant on global supply chains.

8. Conclusion: The Future of U.S. Trade Policy

In wrapping up, both Sam Cedar and Todd Tucker reflect on the precarious state of U.S. trade policy. Tucker underscores the absence of a proactive strategy in Trump's approach, contrasting it with the structured industrial policies that have historically supported economic growth and stability.

“What we're going to see is a lot of U.S. companies... shutting down” (42:24).

Sam Cedar echoes the sentiment, expressing concern over the potential long-term damage to the U.S. economy and the erosion of democratic checks on executive power.

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Notable Quotes

• Sam Cedar on Trump's Tariff Chaos (28:15):

  “He's just putting the protective cover on there over basically dirt without any seeds.”

• Todd Tucker on Trade Agreements Favoring Capital (24:04):

  “It's really a way to sort of empower capital at the expense of labor and expensive communities across the US and frankly also abroad.”

• Donald Trump in Kristen Welker Interview (34:35):

  “Prices are down on groceries. Prices are down for oil. Prices are down for oil. Energy prices are down at tremendous numbers for gasoline.”

• Todd Tucker on Legal Challenges (48:29):

  “This is something really where the administration is departing... and courts have limited power to review IPA declarations.”

---

Implications for the Future

The episode paints a grim picture of the current U.S. trade environment under Trump's influence, highlighting the potential for economic instability and strained international relations. Tucker advocates for a return to balanced trade policies that support both domestic industries and fair international competition. The conversation underscores the urgent need for coherent policy-making to navigate the complexities of global trade in an increasingly interconnected world.

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Note:

• The summary excludes non-content segments such as advertisements, intros, outros, and informal banter to maintain focus on the substantive discussion regarding trade policies and tariffs.
• Timestamps correspond to the provided transcript for reference.

Transcript

[Emma Vigland]

You are listening to a free version.

[Sam Cedar]

Of the Majority Report.

[Emma Vigland]

Support this [e-mail] and get an extra hour of content daily.

[Sam Cedar]

It is Monday, May 5th, Cinco de Mayo 2025. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five time award winning Majority. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America. On the program today, Todd Tucker.

[Emma Vigland]

Of.

[Sam Cedar]

The Roosevelt Institute of the Roosevelt Institute, Director of Industrial Policy and Trade. Also on the program today, after meeting with John Voight. Trump vows to tariff foreign films or US films or nobody knows but 100% Israeli cabinet approves a plan for indefinite occupation and maybe war in Gaza. Meanwhile, Trump regime signal clone that they use to archive their illicit messaging has been hacked.

[Emma Vigland]

What?

[Sam Cedar]

Fear not. It took over 15 minutes to do so. Progress on the Republican one big beautiful reconciliation bill grinds to a halt. Meanwhile, Governor Abbott signs Texas voucher bill in a bid to undermine public schools. 15% of USDA employees have been pushed into early retirement. Staffing shortages have Newark air traffic controller warning against flying into that airport. Trump administration starts canceling NEA grants and slashes research into LGBTQ help. Maine shuts down the Trump regime's attempt to punish Governor Mills by ending 170,000 Maine student school lunches. DOJ accuses Aetna, Humana and others of Medicare Advantage kickback scheme. We found the waste in fraud. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks so much for joining us.

[Emma Vigland]

It is fun day Monday.

[Sam Cedar]

Fun day Monday. Now, I didn't even headline the part about Donald Trump wants to reopen Alcatraz because we know that's not going to happen and he's just a moron. We'll talk about it later in the program.

[Emma Vigland]

Do you think he just saw some old movies and Alcatraz was in the back of his mind or something like that?

[Todd Tucker]

Yeah, exactly.

[Unknown]

It's that generation sort of imaginative island.

[Emma Vigland]

Because remember, he wanted the moat where the where. Remember his idea for the moat at the border with alligators and crocodiles? He thinks like a 12 year old.

[Sam Cedar]

When did, when did he announce the Alcatraz thing?

[Emma Vigland]

Sunday.

[Sam Cedar]

Sunday Via. Okay, here's my theory.

[Emma Vigland]

Okay.

[Sam Cedar]

Jon Voight goes to Mar? A Lago. He's there with his agent, Hollywood kingmaker. They're talking about films. They're talking about films and how production has, you know, in other places. But they start talking about the movie Alcatraz and, and then Trump issues Both those edicts 100%. That must be it there's no doubt in my mind. I mean he, there's no way he knows anything about Alcatraz other than there was a movie about it and it was so tough to get out.

[Emma Vigland]

Do you think he did the tour.

[Sam Cedar]

Was that with like Andy to pre and he's like, he gets out there and Morgan Freeman and that. Oh, no, that's the different one. Shawshank. Okay. Real.

[Emma Vigland]

A new executive order.

[Sam Cedar]

Reopen Shawshank. Shawshank reopen.

[Unknown]

See if there's not water out it they could dig out with a spoon.

[Sam Cedar]

And what about the Sting? Let's do that again.

[Emma Vigland]

You lost me on that one. Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

You don't know what the. You don't know what the Sting is.

[Emma Vigland]

I've heard the name of the film.

[Unknown]

It's like the Green Hornet.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah, but not the bad one with the Seth.

[Sam Cedar]

This is where I just sort of stare off into the distance and feel my life force fading away as I just pass on into the night. You don't know what the Sting is. God, man.

[Emma Vigland]

I mean, it's from 19.

[Sam Cedar]

I would love to know about being a 21 year old girl. Oh, God, I'm not going to make it through this. I'm not going to make it through the next four years. It's just not going to happen.

[Emma Vigland]

All right, well, thanks for the heads up, everybody.

[Sam Cedar]

Be prepared please. Donald Trump sat down for a wide ranging meeting with her name caroler.

[Emma Vigland]

Kristen Welker.

[Sam Cedar]

Kristen Welker on NBC News. We're going to play a bunch of clips from it because it's, there's a lot of insanity there. I don't know if it's actual insanity or what, but it's becoming increasingly clear that he just, there is a method to his madness and he avoids things that he doesn't want to talk about by blaming other people or talking about his lawyers. And then everything else he talks about, clearly he just talks to four or five or 10 people and just parrots what they're saying, but doesn't know what they mean beyond what he's just said. So, you know, it's like he gets these talking points that resonate with him, but he's not reasoned them out. So he can't go any further than those. And they sound insane when he says them. But. And we'll get to a lot of these things over the course of the show. But here is Trump again. We saw on camera when Stephen Miller lot, they were in the White House in the Oval Office and there was like there was a press gathering. There's a lot of people in there. And Stephen Miller is like announcing to the president that they won the Supreme Court case by Brego Garcia 9 to 0, when in fact it was the opposite. And.

[Emma Vigland]

But isn't that the declare victory no matter what thing? Like if we're looking at Stephen Miller as almost Roy Cohn reincarnate, it's that just be strong and wrong and break things and just declare victory no matter what.

[Sam Cedar]

Ever since he stopped spray painting his head, he's really gotten better. All right, let's go.

[Kristen Welker]

So let's talk about this because obviously you've had a back and forth with the supreme court. In a 9 to 0 decision, the Supreme Court directed your administration to facilitate the return. You've talked about this in the past. From a prison in El Salvador whose deportation your administration called it in administrative error. You said in a recent interview you could bring him back, but you won't. Are you defying the Supreme Court?

[Donald Trump]

No, I'm relying on the Attorney General of the United States. Pam Bondi is very capable, doing a great job. Because I'm not involved in the legality or the illegality. I have lawyers to do that. And that's why I have a great doj. We have a great one. We had a very corrupt one before. Now we have a great one. And they're not viewing the decision the way you said it. They don't view it that way at all. They think it's a totally different decision.

[Kristen Welker]

Well, you say you have the power to bring him back, though. Your attorney general says, quote, that's up to El Salvador. Just to put a fine point on this. Do you have the power to bring Abrego Garcia back as the Supreme Court?

[Donald Trump]

Well, I have the power to ask for him to come back if I'm instructed by the attorney General that it's legal to do so. But the decision as to whether or not he should come back will be the head of El Salvador. He's a very capable man.

[Kristen Welker]

Well, you know, and your attorney general has said the issues with that word facilitate. Will you seek clarification from the Supreme Court? Do you need to go back to the Supreme Court?

[Donald Trump]

We may do that. I was asking about that. We may do that.

[Kristen Welker]

Your secretary of state says everyone who's here, citizens and noncitizens, deserve due process. Do you agree, Mr. President?

[Donald Trump]

I don't know. I'm not. I'm not a lawyer.

[Kristen Welker]

I don't know the fifth Amendment.

[Sam Cedar]

I don't know.

[Donald Trump]

It seems. It seems, it might say that. But if you're Talking about that, then we'd have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials. We have thousands of people that are some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on earth, some of the worst, most dangerous people on earth. And I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it.

[Kristen Welker]

But even given those numbers that you're talking about, don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?

[Donald Trump]

I don't know. I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said. What you said is not what I heard the Supreme Court said. They have a different interpretation.

[Kristen Welker]

Is anyone in your administration right now in contact with El Salvador about returning?

[Sam Cedar]

The interesting thing here is, is that he's. He's just playing so dumb. And he's not this dumb. He knows I just am not gonna. I'm deferring to my lawyers, as if he's like some.

[Emma Vigland]

As if he's on trial.

[Sam Cedar]

First of all, he's not the client of the doj. Let's make that clear. It's supposed to be independent, but that's. DOJ attorneys were the ones who went into court and said, we screwed up on multiple occasion when it came to Abrego Garcia. But this whole idea, like, I don't know if I need to follow the Constitution. This is pretty basic stuff. Let's cut to his attorney advising him whether or not he should take this vow.

[Emma Vigland]

This is not privileged. It was on camera. Yeah.

[Donald Trump]

Please raise your right hand and repeat after me.

[Sam Cedar]

I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear.

[Donald Trump]

I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear.

[Sam Cedar]

That I will faithfully execute.

[Donald Trump]

That I will faithfully execute. The office of President of the United States. The office of President of the United States.

[Sam Cedar]

And will, to the best of my ability.

[Donald Trump]

And will, to the best of my ability.

[Sam Cedar]

Preserve, protect and defend.

[Donald Trump]

Preserve, protect and defend.

[Sam Cedar]

The Constitution of the United States.

[Donald Trump]

The Constitution of the United States.

[Sam Cedar]

So help me God.

[Donald Trump]

So help me God.

[Sam Cedar]

Congratulations. We didn't see if he had his fingers crossed or if his attorney. I don't know if that was his attorney disguised as the spy v. Spy character from the old Mad magazine.

[Emma Vigland]

I think it was Carmen San Diego.

[Unknown]

Next time you say the Supreme Court said that, but Pam Bondi told me the Supreme Court gave me a gold star, so I don't know.

[Sam Cedar]

It's.

[Emma Vigland]

He said that in the interview. I will do it if the Attorney General tells me to. No. Do you tell It. If the Supreme Court tells you, well.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm going to throw her under the bus before it's me, she should go to jail if she's wrong.

[Emma Vigland]

So he's been saying, I don't know. We picked up on this tick. He's got. He's picked this up, I think, in particular after his court cases. Right. He's the. He's one step away from slipping up and saying, I plead the Fifth, because that's how he's acting. He's acting like the Department of Justice is his personal lawyer, are his personal lawyers, and that he's sitting in front of a judge being questioned because that's what he's been doing over the past four years.

[Sam Cedar]

I don't remember. Maybe check with my lawyer. Not recall.

[Unknown]

Trump denied knowing that they were using undocumented Polish workers to clear asbestos at a Trump Tower.

[Sam Cedar]

What? I'm shocked.

[Unknown]

This is something.

[Sam Cedar]

Are you kidding? That's probably. Wait, who was there? Is that. Is that legal? I don't know.

[Emma Vigland]

Do you think that the President of the United States should know what the Constitution says?

[Sam Cedar]

Well, look, if everybody knew, you wouldn't need experts.

[Emma Vigland]

I'm sorry to be a coastal elite about it, but I do feel like perhaps that base level of knowledge might be important there.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, whatever. Move on. Let's talk about something.

[Emma Vigland]

Sorry to be such a. Oh, my.

[Unknown]

God, this is boring. We got to do hotels and stuff.

[Sam Cedar]

You've got blood coming out of everywhere.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

In a moment, we're going to be talking to Todd Tucker, political science scientist and director of Industrial Policy and Trade for the Roosevelt Institute. First couple words from our sponsors. It is spring, getting a lot of rain over the past week, and things are going to explode. Now is the time to go out and plant.

[Emma Vigland]

Actually, it doesn't stink because then we can grow beautiful trees.

[Sam Cedar]

That's right.

[Unknown]

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[Sam Cedar]

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[Emma Vigland]

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[Sam Cedar]

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[Emma Vigland]

Mmm.

[Sam Cedar]

That's. That's the one I'm always looking for. Like, if I was gonna plant A berry bush, which is the one that I would do post apocalyptic and that apparently the wolfberry is the one to. I think it's the wolfberry.

[Emma Vigland]

It's good for that.

[Sam Cedar]

I think it has a lot of anti. It's like one of the superfoods.

[Emma Vigland]

Oh, cool.

[Sam Cedar]

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[Todd Tucker]

Oh.

[Sam Cedar]

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[Emma Vigland]

I'm trying not super soft to spoil but I got another pair for somebody for an upcoming holiday.

[Sam Cedar]

Oh yeah, nobody will figure that.

[Emma Vigland]

Okay. Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

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[Emma Vigland]

My mom's not listening.

[Donald Trump]

That really helps you to be mama of the country.

[Sam Cedar]

Take a quick break. When we come back, Dr. Todd and Tucker, political scientist, director of industrial policy for trade and trade for the Roosevelt Institute. We are back. Sam Cedar, Emma Vigland on the Majority Report. Want to welcome to the program Dr. Todd Tucker, political scientist, director of industrial policy and trade for the Roosevelt Institute. Tell us, let's just start with an overview of of, of our trade policy. Maybe historically, particularly in this modern era. I mean we can go back to Smoot Hawley if you want. And maybe we should at least mention it because Trump's. I don't know if it's a trade policy or just like what, whatever he's trying to do is the most disruptive, I guess since Smoot Hawley. But, but you take it from there.

[Todd Tucker]

Yeah. So thanks so much for having me on. Longtime member and fan. So, so glad to be here with you today.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, thank you very much. Maybe we'll give you a shofar for that.

[Todd Tucker]

Great.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay.

[Emma Vigland]

I always love to hear that.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah.

[Todd Tucker]

So you know, I think you set it up. Well, I mean, basically Smoot Hawley was this tariff that was passed in 1930 a few years after the Great Depression started. And it's widely credited with deepening the Great Depression. It was, if you will, kind of the last gasp of a long history of US protectionism. I mean, basically, from the founding till about 1930, the US was relatively closed, economy did not engage in a lot of trade, and Smoot Hawley was a huge tariff hike. That was kind of the last time the US Engaged in protectionism at all close to this level. Over the years since, basically, Congress, in order to try to free up trade, started delegating more authority to the executive branch, to the president, to negotiate trade agreements. So this started with Roosevelt, where they did fairly modest kind of tariff reduction agreements, but then really accelerated in the 1970s when you started to see trade agreements start to cover a lot more than just tariff rates and, in fact, include a lot of deregulation of things behind the border. And, of course, we know sort of 1993, Bill Clinton signs the North American Free Trade Agreement, which takes sort of the complexity of trade agreements to an even higher level. And then China joins the World Trade Organization in the years after that. And so, basically, for many, many years, the US has been on a trajectory of liberalizing its trade to the point where now the average. Before Trump came back into office, the average tariff the US was charging was around 2 to 3%, which is about some of the lowest rates that are charged by any. Any country anywhere around the world. You know, with Trump, and we can kind of get into the details of what he's done in the last 104 days, but we've seen tariffs go up to an excess of 10% as a minimum, which is by far the largest tariff and tax increase, if you want to call it that, in US History.

[Sam Cedar]

I just want to, like, get a sense of characterizing when we go into nafta, when there's an attempt with CAFTA and then the tpp, the attempt on the tpp, is it fair to characterize it as we liberalized in the sense that we relaxed things dramatically and, you know, neoliberalized in the sort of the real Mont Peleron style. We allowed capital to cross as if there's no borders. Labor, of course, we've had, you know, contraction. We certainly had more protectionism on the labor side, not on the. On the capital or manufacturing side. I mean, when we say we ship manufacturing to somewhere else, we're basically letting capital just invest over there as opposed to here. And so this was a liberalization, but a very unbalanced one, it seems, within the context of, like, the two things that you need to make stuff which is labor and capital.

[Todd Tucker]

Yeah, that's absolutely right. And in fact, I mean, you know, the free trade theory that economists like to cite predicts that as countries liberalize trade, you would start to see an equalization of incomes and wages over time. And we absolutely have not seen that. In fact, precisely because the structure of the trade agreements that you're, that you're addressing, deals like the Trans Pacific Partnership, the North American Free Trade Agreement, far from sort of converging incomes across countries, in fact led to sort of the Mexico becoming sort of a permanent low wage reservoir for US Manufacturing, which was very convenient. Whenever sort of workers in the US would try to unionize. Companies could sort of say, well, hey, there's zero tariffs across the US Mexico border, we can relocate there. And so that as a consequence, that squashed a lot of unionization drives. At the same time, through these trade agreements, companies were able, companies like Monsanto, like Citibank, were able to demand a whole set of special treatment behind the border in places like Mexico. So that countries, rather than sort of building up their own administrative state capacities, were basically stuck in a deregulatory, low regulation equilibrium. And then companies got even special rights to litigate and sue countries if they would try to go against some of those norms and standards. So it was really a way to sort of empower capital at the expense of labor and expensive communities across the US and frankly also abroad.

[Sam Cedar]

And lastly, just also, so we have a clear characterization of these trade agreements, they seem to in many ways empower a third party. You know, assuming there was a bilateral trade agreement between Mexico and America, there's a third party that is empowered which, which overruns the sovereign. And you're, you're, you're talking about that in terms of special, you know, deals for, you know, for Monsanto in, in Mexico. But the, the investor dispute system. I can never remember ISDs or. I can't remember exactly. Yeah, yes, that basically empowers corporations to strip a certain amount of sovereignty and will from the nations that are involved in this agreement so that they can't act on behalf of what their countries ostensibly want protection from this chemical or, you know, saving the trees or the spotted owl for that matter, if it costs these corporations projected revenue.

[Todd Tucker]

That's right. So you know, if a company sort of comes in and says, hey, we invested in Argentina or we invested in Malawi, kind of expecting this low regulation environment that you committed to when you signed up for the trade agreement, if you start ratcheting that back up, maybe because you had a financial crisis, or you had some type of economic collapse, or you just want to engage in industrial policy to develop your country, develop your country's economy, go beyond just exporting primary materials, raw commodities, and instead go up the value chain. Well, then we have basically the authority to be effect, like what we, what we in the US Would call private attorneys general, you know, go around the government and directly litigate against the government for those lost future expected profits. And so it was, it was a very useful disciplining device for big companies and for capital to keep countries in line for much of that neoliberal period over the last several decades.

[Sam Cedar]

So this, this neoliberal regime, from my perspective, and I think from, I would imagine maybe probably from yours at the Roosevelt Institute, but also from the perspective of, of workers as opposed to capital, not a great deal. Let's talk about tariffs. Is just the implementation of tariffs without any perceived rhyme or reason. Is that the opposite of that or is that just something completely different? Like what would be the opposite of that, of, of that regime, trade regime?

[Todd Tucker]

Well, so I think that there is the smart alternative to that regime and then there's the dumb alternative. Right. So we know a little bit what the smart alternative was, and it actually included some tariffs. And that was called the Biden administration. You know, I don't know if a lot of your listeners know, but in 2023 and 2024, we saw the biggest expansion of manufacturing construction in this country that we've seen since we were keeping the statistics. 900 factories built up or retrofitted across the country, 60,000 infrastructure projects built up. And, you know, there was a tariff component to that which was basically saying that if we're going to be investing trillions of dollars in the clean energy industry and the semiconductor industry, we definitely don't want those to be overwhelmed next month by sort of a flood of Chinese imports, because China's building up its capacity in a major way, which has actually helped to develop its country. And that's good, but really gone so far in excess of what the domestic economy needs that they sort of don't have any choice but to try to export that to the rest of the world. So, you know, as part of Biden's industrial policy, they did have tariffs, but it was a backstop. It was really like the complement to the industrial policy and the subsidies and the R and D and the sort of planning support that they were given. So there were tariffs, and in fact, they were in some cases quite large. So you had 100% tariffs on electric vehicles. And just to give people a sense, typically the consensus among economists is that a 50% tariff basically shuts off trade. And so 100% tariff, at that point, you're really making a point that you want to have an infant industry protection for that electric vehicle industry to allow Detroit and the automakers and the UAW to transition to that new system. So that's the kind of smart way of doing it. The dumb way is that you sort of from hour to hour announce different tariff rates that are seemingly drawn from the air with no clear rationale where you're imposing. Imposing tariffs of anywhere from 20 to 150% on countries, some of whom we have trade deficits with, some we have trade surpluses with, some that are tiny developing nations that wouldn't be able to buy a lot of our products anyway, like Lesotho, that came in for a 50% tariff. African Kingdom landlocked by South Africa, you know, all the way to 20% on the European Union, with whom we actually do have some lasting sort of trade problems. So there's really kind of no rhyme or reason, which, you know, and there's been any number of rationales that different folks in the administration have tried to use to sort of, as they call sane, wash this policy. But it really is just a pure chaos.

[Sam Cedar]

But. But even if there was some rationality, it seems to me, and tell me if this metaphor makes sense, that, you know, if I'm. If I'm planting a seed and I'm trying to grow a seedling, I'll put maybe a little covered over, so it'll be humid in there. I'll put in, you know, plant food. I will try and grow it. Those are all the sort of proactive things I'm doing. The plastic cover around it is to protect it just in case, like, it's not too windy or, you know, nobody's going to come, you know, a little mouse is not going to come by and eat it. He's just putting the protective cover on there over basically dirt without any seeds. And it. The tariffs are there to protect something, but the protect thing doesn't exist yet. And so there's no proactive part to grow whatever he's trying to grow.

[Emma Vigland]

It's almost worse in that he's putting salt in the area where there should be a seed because they are firing the probationary employees that were supposed to be implementing the CHIPS act, which would have been somewhat of an industrial policy.

[Todd Tucker]

That's absolutely right. I mean, that's a great point. I mean, in fact, they're going out doing criminal threatening, criminal prosecutions against the career civil servants that are managing some of these industrial policy programs. So, you know, even though there's a ton of litigation now going against both sort of Trump's rollback of the chips and science program and the inflation Reduction act, you know, hopefully I think that those will ultimately be successful because it's so brazenly illegal what the administration is doing. But on some level it won't matter. By the time that you've sort of frustrated these programs and undermined confidence in them, then, you know, banks that might go in as co lenders don't want to do that. Communities and mayors that want to build up programs are going to hold back. And so once you've created that level of uncertainty, you know, there's almost no level of tariff rate that you could impose that would make it worthwhile to invest in something that might take 5, 10, 20 years to bear profit. And you know, even if you were going to sort of build up everything using only tariffs, which would be a really bad idea, but even if you're going to try to do that, companies would need to know that those were going to be in place for a decade or more. And there's just no, no sense of on the day to day shifting rationale of why they're doing the tariffs or what level they're going to be. That that's something that the companies could rely on.

[Sam Cedar]

Let's look at this clip because like nobody, nobody rational seems to be able to explain, you know, like Scott Bessant, they send him out there to explain this thing and it looks like, honestly, like, like someone you, you know, threw into the deep end of the pool with a, with a 200 pound weight and he's just trying to tread water. The only person who seems to know is Peter Navarro. Well, I was gonna say Ron Ravano.

[Emma Vigland]

Ron Varron, Varro, the expert that came up with this, this equation.

[Sam Cedar]

His, his imaginary self, what is it?

[Todd Tucker]

What do you call.

[Unknown]

Alter ego.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, right. Yeah, his alter ego in the book who validates all his points.

[Emma Vigland]

Leave that paper trail. But anyway, go.

[Sam Cedar]

Apparently that's how, I mean, my understanding is that Don Jr. Or no, it was Kushner was looking for a trade expert, saw this book, read the book, said it makes sense. And then Navarro became the trade guy and it was all based upon him in a conversation with himself. But here is Trump being asked in this Kristen Welker interview on Meet the Press yesterday, like, what? How do you measure success in this? And here's Trump's perspective?

[Kristen Welker]

Well, prices are already going up on some popular items. Tires, strollers.

[Donald Trump]

This is such a dishonest, this interview already. Prices are down on groceries. Prices are down for oil. Prices are down for oil. Energy prices are down at tremendous numbers for gasoline. And let me tell you, when you.

[Sam Cedar]

Have positive, I just want to say also gasoline and oil, we're basically talking like very, very like they're derivative products of each other. So in the egg prices, they keep saying egg prices are going down. I don't see any evidence of that. Like I'm looking at the average cost of eggs and they're basically maintaining, if not creeping up slightly. I don't know what he means by groceries. But this, they keep repeating this, but.

[Emma Vigland]

An old fashioned word.

[Sam Cedar]

Putting that aside because, you know, there is a, I would say a thousand miles off the coast of L. A. We get a sense of what's about to happen. But continue what he did.

[Donald Trump]

He spent like a stupid person, which he was, but he spent like a very stupid person. And that was bad for inflation. But what really killed us with inflation was the price of energy. It went up to $3.90, even $4. And in California five and six dollars. Right. Okay. I have it down to a dollar 98 in many states right now. When you go that much lower on energy, which is ahead of my prediction because I really thought I could get it down into the two 50s. We have it down at a dollar 98 in numerous places. But when you say costs are going up, even mortgage rates are going down.

[Kristen Welker]

Well, let me give you some examples. These are, I mean these are actual examples there. So you're saying the prices that are going down, some prices are going up. Tires, strollers, some clothing. In the wake of your tariffs, that's.

[Donald Trump]

Peanuts compared to energy. Energy is 60% of the cost. Sir, you, energy is a big, you.

[Kristen Welker]

Campaigned on a promise to bring prices down on day.

[Donald Trump]

Well, I don't know. When you say strollers are going up, what kind of a thing. I'm saying that gasoline is going down. Gasoline is thousands of times more important than a stroller. Some.

[Kristen Welker]

But what do you say to Americans who say they voted for you because they want and they need relief right.

[Donald Trump]

Now and they're getting it right now. What about even mortgage rates?

[Kristen Welker]

Different items. I just.

[Donald Trump]

Mortgage rates are going down despite the fact that we have a stubborn fed.

[Kristen Welker]

But you said dolls, even dolls could cost a couple bucks more.

[Donald Trump]

Maybe they might. But you don't need to have, as I said, $35. You can have 2, 3, 4. And save a lot of money. We don't need to feed the beast.

[Kristen Welker]

I guess you're talking about this transition cost. How long should people expect that Transition to last, Mr. President?

[Donald Trump]

I can't tell you that. I can tell you that we're making a lot of money. We're doing great. Again, we're losing more than $5 billion a day. $5 billion a day. You don't talk about that. And right now we're going to be at a point very soon where we're making money every day. Look how soon we were losing hundreds of billions of dollars.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay, so wait, but this is.

[Emma Vigland]

But just five more seconds. Yeah.

[Donald Trump]

Now, we're essentially not doing business with China, therefore we're saving hundreds of billions of dollars.

[Emma Vigland]

That's what I wanted to get to. Because that doesn't make any sense.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay.

[Emma Vigland]

Put it mildly.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, so let's put aside for a moment, like, gas prices are down. That is a reflection of. There's no war that's ongoing, that's inhibiting the price of gas like there was, you know, when at the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine or with problems with Iran or the. And frankly, probably that signals that maybe those gas prices are a little bit down, upstream from a slowdown in economies, perhaps. But putting that aside, that has nothing to do with the tariffs. He's saying that we were losing $5 billion a day, and now that we're not doing business with China, we're saving a lot of money. What is he talking about?

[Todd Tucker]

He's probably talking about the daily trade deficit, which is sort of an obsession of his. The idea that, you know, it's somehow unsustainable if the US Is, is importing less than it's exporting. And, you know, look, a broken clock is right twice a day. There's definitely some reason to be concerned with how sustainable that is over time. But the problem is, despite his obsession on this, the trade deficit actually went up under his first administration, and it's edging up now again as well. Both the exporting and importing side of this are important. You've got to make stuff that the world wants to buy. And it seems like Trump's going in an exact opposite direction, deregulating consumer safety, deregulating auto safety standards and others. That's not a surefire way to make inroads into the European market, into the Asian market. So he's thinking just by sort of shutting down one side of that ledger, that you're somehow solving a problem. But I think the problem is he's asking Americans to make a huge sacrifice here, but without any clear vision of what ultimately that sacrifice is for. You know, certainly there's times in history where FDR and others have called on people to make a sacrifice, but it's usually been for a war or for another emergency or fighting the Great Depression. Here the policy chaos is entirely result of his own making. There's not some sort of external factor here. So he's really asking us to sacrifice for his own mistakes and his own chaos.

[Sam Cedar]

But it's. So he's saying that we're losing 5 billion a day because with China, because we are purchasing these products instead of making them here, I guess theoretically. And so that money ultimately ends up in China to the tune of $5 billion a day. And he perceives that as a, a loss despite the fact that a lot of those products from China end up being products that make it possible for products to be made here in this country. Like you can't, you know, it's the packaging, it's, there's a lot of, it's.

[Emma Vigland]

A complex supply chain, but there's a.

[Sam Cedar]

Lot of like our productivity that is incumbent. So if you were to really break it down, it's possible we would still be losing money in that way or spending money, as he says, but it would definitely be a lot less because we're inhibiting. People are going to have to turn around and try and find a substitute for that in this country. And it could end up costing them more and it could even come from a different country.

[Todd Tucker]

That's right. I mean, over the last, since the 70s, we've disentangled our supply chains. So the companies like GM or Boeing that used to make a lot of their parts in house have outsourced that first to companies in the US and then ultimately to companies overseas. That's been a long term process and it's one, you know, there's pluses and minuses to that arrangement. But whatever you think about it, you can't undo it overnight. You know, it's going to just be outright inflationary. And ultimately what we're going to see is a lot of US companies, the manufacturers that still exist in this country are going to be shutting down. And we've already seen that with GM and with some of the companies that have had to idle production. And so these are the very workers and voters that the Trump based a lot of his campaign promises on helping. And ultimately we're seeing that a lot of them now are out of work or will be soon as the sort of the full impact of some of these tariffs come into display over the next few weeks.

[Emma Vigland]

He last week, at the end of last week, he allowed the de minimis exemption to expire, which means that goods that are under $800 are not subjected to duties and to tariffs. And there was an analysis done that showed that nearly half of those goods, that the cheap goods that are imported at that level go to the poorest counties in the country. And you just have to think about it for a second. It's the dollar tree, it's even Walmart. It's the cheaper goods that kind of hold together our economy that is already so unequal with duct tape. Right. That, ok, we may not have a social safety net, but you can buy something at the dollar tree for 99 cents or whatever that underbelly is. All Chinese products.

[Todd Tucker]

That's absolutely right. Yeah. And you know, we, there was, you know, we've had this de minimis exception for, you know, going back to the 30s in the US it didn't used to be a very big deal. It was the kind of thing that, like, maybe if, you know, you were importing like a single tin of sardines from Spain, the idea is that it's not worth going through all the effort to clear that through customs. Let's make it easier for small scale transactions. We've seen over the last, you know, five, six years, companies like Shane and Temu really develop. It's almost kind of the US has created a bit of an industrial policy in reverse where we've kind of made it a viable business model for companies to send in sort of $799 of shipments or even sort of smaller amounts. And you know, as you pointed out, like, there are again, pluses and minuses to that as a policy. In fact, there's been concern, bipartisan concern in Congress over the sort of abuses of that domino system for a while. But this is kind of a pattern that we see even in areas where Trump could get legislation through Congress and there would be an opportunity to do hearings, an opportunity to do fact finding, sort of hear like be aware in advance of the pluses and minuses to the various policies. He's just doing it directly through executive action without any process to speak of. I mean, his tariff actions in the first administration actually went through a bit of a process that, you know, slowed them down a bit, sort of, you know, made cushion the impact somewhat this time around. He's just doing it all through executive order without any type of process at all. Which is just making for really bad policy.

[Sam Cedar]

What is the authority in which he's doing this? Like specifically like statute? Because he announced today that after, and to be fair, I mean, he consulted with John Voight and John Voight's manager. So, you know, that's due diligence. Who am I to question? Because Voight has done some very good work in the past, but he's going to, he's claiming he's going to tariff foreign films 100%. Now it's unclear if he means like a film that is produced in France, in French and we watch here with subtitles, or if he means American productions that go to a different country because it's cheaper to do and they get incentives and whatnot. Now with all that said, we have very large trade surplus pluses with the world when it comes to entertainment. That's one of the few things that we really export a lot of. But my understanding is the authority that he's using to do all these tariffs specifically says that information products cannot be tariffed.

[Todd Tucker]

Yeah, that's right. So all of this is under the International Economic Emergencies Authorities act, ipa. And it's one of the most open ended of, you know, many frankly open ended delegations of authority that Congress has, has issued over the years. And so this has been in place in one form or another since 1917. It was originally called the Treating with the Enemies act. And as you can get a sense from the title there, it was really meant to sort of address a series of like very acute emergencies, unexpected and unusual emergencies, you know, typically that have been things like terrorism related or sort of money laundering related that have been used in sort of a very discreet fashion to sort of sanction individuals that were involved in alleged wrongdoing, that kind of thing. It's very rarely and in fact since IEIPO was went into effect in 1976, has never been used for broad tariffs. So this is something really where the administration is departing. And I think that it's no coincidence because basically ia, unlike some of the other parts of US Trade law, is basically totally subject to whatever the President says it is at any given moment. There's not any process around it. And courts have limited power to review IPA declarations because they're made by the President himself in his sort of personal capacity as opposed to a federal agency. So we've seen over the years with the Roberts Court that they've tended to not like it when the EPA or other agencies use power delegated from Congress. But they've kind of put an asterisk by that for actions the President himself takes directly in sort of the foreign affairs realm. And so that is why sort of Trump and Navarro and the whole team of hawks over there have gravitated towards, towards IA to issue sort of the most sweeping tariffs. And so there's, you know, seven different court cases right now litigating against those tariffs. I think honestly, they are going to have a hard time convincing the courts that the tariffs are unlawful because the statute is written in such a broad and expansive fashion. And despite many, many opportunities to revise that and dial it back, Congress hasn't. So I think that the Roberts court, if they're sort of looking to give Trump a win somewhere so that they can give sort of a ding to him somewhere else, I think that I can actually see that as economically impactful as these tariffs are, this might be an area where they're going to let him off.

[Sam Cedar]

But, but there was a berman amendment in 1988, is my understanding, to IPA that specifically says protections that were basically outside the purview of IPA were films, CDs, DVDs, digital publications, online communications, books, new media, etc. Etc. That they had some First Amendment driven protection and you can't tariff those.

[Todd Tucker]

That's absolutely right. So, I mean, there is kind of this information exception based on First Amendment concerns that they wanted to, you know, not do anything to discourage the free flow of information. Got to also think that in the context of sort of the final days of the Cold War, you know, the US Sort of information exports were a huge way that they were, they were sort of waging the Cold War. And so those were some of the concerns that led to that amendment. You know, it's unclear what Trump is actually proposing here. I mean, this is very unusual. You know, of course, we're not in the era where there's, where films are traditionally coming back and forth over, you know, VHS tapes anymore. So it's unclear what he's even sort of saying he is going to tariff. If it's going to be something like a digital services tax, which is like Europe, Europe is now kind of imposed on Facebook and some other companies, there's maybe a way that this could be sort of the inverse of that. But it's not going to be a traditional kind of tariff that's collected at the border. It's going to be some type of services taxation that they're going to have to invent a whole new system, frankly, to even kind of come up with how they're going to administer that. You know, at A time when Doge and others are laying off all the government staff that would be needed to actually figure out how to do this completely new system. So it's, there's all sorts of contradictions there, there.

[Sam Cedar]

But surely Jon Voight understood it and walked Trump through it. Maybe we'll have to wait until, I don't know, Bo Derek comes in. Like, I'm trying to think of all the right wing luminaries that will show.

[Emma Vigland]

Up at Randy Quaid. We were saying earlier.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, ever since Chuck Woolery passed away, I feel like our whole policy system, system around this has been completely willy nilly. So where, what do you anticipate going forward? Because we're going to play a clip later in the program and we had mentioned this, I think it was on Friday or maybe it was earlier last week that the Port of L. A obviously, like they book ships get booked well in advance at the Port of LA it's the biggest port, I think, in the country. It's obviously the one that is where goods from China are coming from. And they're anticipating like in two weeks about 30 to 40% of their business to simply fall off a cliff. Like it's just not going to be there. And then this goes through the sort of the system like people, it's sort of like when New York City outlawed plastic bags. You know, all these like bodegas went out and bought as many of the plastic sacks they have because they're allowed to finish their supply. There's going to be a cushion. Right. But then all of a sudden, who knows where it's going to be five, six weeks from two weeks from now. So maybe we're talking about two months all of a sudden, like there's gonna be no more of this or that. It's just not gonna exist in our shelves.

[Todd Tucker]

Yeah. I mean, so let's kind of remember back. It was almost exactly a month ago that we had quote, unquote, Liberation Day where Trump announced sort of a whole suite of tariff measures which, you know, we could get into details, but basically we're like a universal baseline tariff of 10% and then a crazy sort of mishmash of tariffs, so called reciprocal tariffs against countries we have trade deficits with. That was April 2nd. That was put on pause till April 9th and now has been put on pause for sort of an even further period of time until around July 8th is sort of when we'll sort of see the fate of those reciprocal tariffs. But if you look at sort of the real economy, it takes about 20 days to get a shipment from China to the US about 10 days to get from sort of the ports on the west coast to to shelves across the United States. So that's about 30 days, more or less. And so again, about a month ago was sort of when some of the tariffs went into effect. So we should be seeing the impact of that in the coming days. As you pointed out, shipments to the port of LA are way down. Some of these companies like TEMU that were sort of doing the small value shipments have said they're no longer going to be shipping at all to the United States and are going to be routing everything through third countries. And that's kind of a whole nother part of this story, which is that the more you create differential tariffs between different sets of countries, the more reward there is for trying to game the system in creative ways or do things like what's called Trent Shipment, which is basically just kind of shipping something to Singapore and then reshipping it to the United States. So there's going to be a lot of opportunity for gaming the system, frankly, for criminal syndicates to get involved and sort of figuring out ways to relabel products as made from a different country than they were made in. And so there's going to be shortages and there's going to be a lot of this kind of falsification of documents that we're going to see. So, you know, I think that that's kind of the impact that I would expect to see. You know, we're in May, over May and June, and then I think that July deadline for the reciprocal tariffs to go into place. You know, supposedly we're going to be negotiating over 100 trade agreements with countries around the world at a very time where we're sort of firing the trade negotiators and officials that are responsible for doing that for the federal government. So I don't see any way that we're going to get there, you know, and I think that they're just going to have to ultimately punt the tariffs still further. You know, and I think that's kind of where we get to what we're seeing is that Trump is kind of making a lot of threats, but then in a lot of cases is backing off of those threats once Wall street and sort of big donors come in and complain. You know, we've seen sort of on again, off again tariffs for the auto industry where after they complained they were sort of rolled back and made less onerous. And so there's basically a lobbying frenzy happening right now in D.C. for tariff exemptions for special tariff treatments. So, you know, I think where this ends up at the end of the day, whether it's, you know, something like a total shutdown of trade or sort of a blossoming of a whole new generation of free trade agreements, it's actually hard to see. I could kind of imagine scenarios where either happens.

[Sam Cedar]

So it seems clear though, that like the, the vision of eliminating the income tax because of the hundreds of billions of dollars that we're going to get, that's not going to happen. There's a lot of reason to believe that nobody's going to invest in building a burgeoning industry in this country to replace these things, because no one can rely on this type of protectionism to exist until like, never mind, you know, three years out. Nobody's can. By September, this all could just be like, okay, forget it all, whatever, you know, one big beautiful bill. We're not even going to talk about tariffs anymore. I mean, nobody knows, so nobody's. Nobody. There's not going to be any investment. It just sounds like we're going to have people back up. The only possible outcome, it feels like right now is a slowdown in economic activity. Nothing else seems like rational for anybody else to do.

[Todd Tucker]

That's absolutely right. I mean, even under the most generous assumptions, most generous assumptions towards Trump, the maximum we could sort of collect with tariff revenue is a tiny fraction less than half of what we could collect with the income tax. There's no viable way to replace that, as you pointed out, Sam. I mean, really what we're going to see is not sort of companies, you know, making that five year, ten year investment plan on the basis of these tariffs. Instead, what they're going to do is just simply cease production, you know, stop projects, layoff workers, furlough workers until they get a better sense of what the policy dynamic is going to be a few weeks from now, a few months from now. And so it's really going to just lead to sort of a slowing down of economic activity. Hopefully not a recession, but that could certainly happen. But you know, especially for industrial sectors that are reliant on these kind of predictable flows of inputs into their supply chains, they're just going to be waiting and seeing and not doing major investments of the kind that we saw again in 2023 and 2024 when there was kind of a comprehensive and predictable set of policies. Place.

[Sam Cedar]

The irony, I guess, is, is that everybody's going to do what Trump said at the end of that interview, which is we're not trading with them. So we're saving all this money.

[Emma Vigland]

Right?

[Sam Cedar]

That's exactly what a lot of, like, companies are going to be like. We're just not going to build anything or spend any money or hire anybody, because that way we're not losing money.

[Todd Tucker]

Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean, what they. What companies definitely don't want to do is lose money. And so they would rather just not. Not invest and not sell things for a while so that they're not having to sell at a loss. I mean, you know, we're benefiting the last few weeks of the fact that companies kind of knew that there was going to be some kind of tariff coming into place. They didn't know exactly what, but they were able to stockpile goods. And so, you know, there's huge inventories and sort of quote, unquote, free trade zones across the United States, which are basically places next to custom houses where you can store goods and you don't have to remove them right away. So, you know, US Consumers have been benefiting from the fact that there has been kind of that backlog of goods, you know, but that's going to start drying up over the course of the next few weeks, and I think that's where we're going to start to see folks really take a hit in terms of the variety of goods that are available on supermarket shelves and then for companies, the variety of inputs that they're able to get for their auto production, for their aviation production in other sectors.

[Sam Cedar]

My understanding is that, like a lot of retail places around the country, basically, I mean, they call it Black Friday for a reason. They make all their money in that last quarter. You know, the rest of the year is basically paying off all their expenses, but all their profit is made in that last three weeks of the year. When do they have to start putting in orders for what they're going to have in terms of inventory? How far out do they order those things?

[Todd Tucker]

Well, you know, because there's so many orders coming in from around the world at the same time. You know, they have to get their place in the queue well in advance. So, you know, we're looking at sort of the summer as the time when they would start to be locking in some of those orders. So that's right around we'll sort of know, you know, July 8th is sort of when these reciprocal tariffs go into place or not. You know, whether we have sort of this, you know, again, sort of blossoming of new free trade agreements that go down to zero tariffs across the board. Who knows, right? But I think it's around that time in July when companies are going to start to need to make those plans for their Christmas orders. And so if there's not a lot more certainty by then, which frankly, I think one of the only ways that there could be a lot more certainty is if Congress steps in and reasserts its constitutional authority on trade. If they do that, that might be something that would bring some more certainty to the markets. But I think short of that, if Trump continues to have this tariff toy that he can kind of play with to just generate news headlines on a day to day basis, I don't see that certainty being in place for the companies that need to make those six month plans going mid summer.

[Sam Cedar]

Didn't, didn't the Congress essentially cede their ability to interfere in the, the supposed continuing resolution, the sort of like dirty continuing resolution? Wasn't there a provision of that that ceded their authority?

[Todd Tucker]

Yeah, it was kind of wild. I mean, you know, under the National Emergencies act and under some of the other tariff authorities, Congress gets an up or down vote, an opportunity to give an up or down vote to sort of disagree with the presidents on the president on the existence of an emergency after a certain number of days, you know, legislative days passing on the legislative calendar. So what Republicans did as part of the continuing resolution was freeze the passage of legislative time so that basically no days would pass. And so therefore there would not be that clock that would be ticking to give them the opportunity for the up or down vote. There's now some efforts in Congress to sort of get that clock running again and do some up or down votes. There was a vote in the Senate to suspend the emergency as it relates to Canada that has not gotten a House vote yet. And I think that if the economic conditions continue to worsen, we will see pressure ratcheted up on both Houses to exert more of a check. Frankly, if they don't exert any kind of minimal check even as the economy is collapsing, we'll have bigger problems than just trade problems. That'll be, in fact, sort of an indication of a really severe corrosion of democracy itself.

[Sam Cedar]

I mean, it'll also be fascinating to see if there's any like, House members who are going to break from Trump. I mean, it's one thing to be a senator and do that and maybe have four years before you have to run for reelection, but all these House members are looking at reelection in whatever it is, 16 months, 18 months. And Elon Musk's money there, I guess, wouldn't be deployed in that instance, because Musk is hurting as much as anybody from this. But it'll be fascinating to see where this goes or just also super tragic for a lot of people to lose their job just because of Ron. No. Vera or whatever that. The expert who lives in, you know, Peter Navarro's wall, I guess his imaginary friend, imaginary scholarly friend, to be fair. Dr. Todd Tucker, a political scientist, director of the Industrial Policy and Trade for the Roosevelt Institute. Thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

[Todd Tucker]

Thanks for having me.

[Emma Vigland]

Thank you.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, folks, thus completes the first half of our program. We will head into the so called fun half with a reminder. It's your support that makes this show possible.

[Unknown]

This faux possible.

[Sam Cedar]

This faux pas possible. Nice. Your support keeps this show thriving and surviving, as it were. We have been suffering under the weight of. Of the protectionism of all these Canadian podcasts. And so your support helps. Yeah, on it.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Canada actually does have protectionism for its cultural production.

[Todd Tucker]

Oh, 100% CamCom.

[Sam Cedar]

Oh, no, no, no. I will tell you this.

[Emma Vigland]

I didn't know that.

[Sam Cedar]

I once shot a TV show up there for Fox Television, not news. Conor O'Brien's company bought one of my scripts and we shot something called Beat Cops up there with John Benjamin. Now, we had shot a version in New York City. Then they wanted to shoot another one in Toronto. And I was like, it's a shot on the streets of New York. I'm not going to do it in Canada. And then 911 was when we were in the wake of doing that, and I'm like, okay, I'll go to Canada.

[Emma Vigland]

Also, it's way cheaper, is it not?

[Sam Cedar]

Well, it's. First of all, at that time, it was 80 cents on the dollar.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

So there was a big savings there. And you get incentives. But they say, like characters after a certain level, I can't remember what it was like. The first four characters in the show could be American hires, but then the rest had to be local hires. So it would build part of the Canadian, you know, film and TV job. So we had some. We brought in a couple American actors, obviously, Benjamin and I, and. And then we had Canadians that we. We had to get like these huge sort of tax benefits to it. No, this is not the Nick DePaulo story. That was the New York version. Nick DePaulo was not in that version. But. And so, yes, there's a lot of incentives. And so Vancouver has a huge industry. Toronto has a huge industry. So. But I guess the idea, I think what Trump was trying to do is Say we want to keep those jobs in America. And you know, the way that they do it in places like in Georgia and other places around the country is offer big sort of tax incentives I guess.

[Unknown]

And my understanding is that the kind of season's over on that sort of stuff that states are like Louisiana are realizing that maybe this isn't really as good of a.

[Sam Cedar]

It's not bringing the economic activity that we had hoped.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

I mean I suppose there's a way of basically saying that if you.

[Kristen Welker]

We'Re.

[Sam Cedar]

Going to tack, we're going to tax us investment in productions that are shot overseas. But you'd also have to say like well wait a second, what if the story takes place in Paris?

[Emma Vigland]

Oh my God, there this is going to make more green screen productions which we definitely need more of. I mean come on. I'm being like, I'm not even joking if it goes into effect. I saw some joke on social media people saying that Dune 3 is going to be shot in Cleveland now.

[Sam Cedar]

So I mean looking those not long before that happens.

[Emma Vigland]

I loved those. Like beautiful, gorgeous deserts and landscapes. But you know, I guess sayonara to that.

[Unknown]

You just make it with a. I know, yeah, right.

[Emma Vigland]

I can't. I mean, I mean do we really.

[Sam Cedar]

Even need the actors?

[Emma Vigland]

That's a good point.

[Sam Cedar]

Anyways folks, you can help us stay in the United States by becoming a member@jointhe majorityreport.com also don't forget just coffee. Fair trade coffee from the co op in Madison, Wisconsin. You can buy the majority of Portland. You can get a bunch of a single origin coffees there. You can get big bags, little bags, you can get a ground, you can get a whole bean and you're supporting a co op and you're getting great coffee and supporting their producers and Chiapas and I'm not sure what part of Africa but check it out. Just coffee co op and Matt left reckoning yeah.

[Unknown]

Thomas Kennedy of the why are we like this podcast came on to talk about Florida including Ron DeSantis wife scam in which charity she is dealing with. Got a bunch of kickbacks from a settlement that the state of Florida reached with a company. So check that out. Patreon.com left record we also talk about Florida Democrats and how the Trump 47 immigration crackdown is playing out in Florida because Thomas is a immigration activist. Check that out. Patreon.com left reckoning see you in the.

[Sam Cedar]

Fun half three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out, we're gonna look back and go like, wow.

[Todd Tucker]

What?

[Sam Cedar]

What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second.

[Todd Tucker]

Hold on for.

[Sam Cedar]

Hold on for a second. Emma. Welcome to the program. What is up, everyone? Fun crap.

[Todd Tucker]

No.

[Sam Cedar]

Me. Keen.

[Todd Tucker]

You did it.

[Sam Cedar]

Fun crap.

[Emma Vigland]

Let's go, Brandon.

[Sam Cedar]

Let's go, Brandon. Fun half. Bradley, you want to say hello?

[Todd Tucker]

Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today. Fundamentally false.

[Emma Vigland]

No. I'm sorry.

[Sam Cedar]

Women. Stop talking for a second. Let me finish.

[Todd Tucker]

Where is this coming from?

[Emma Vigland]

Dude?

[Sam Cedar]

But. Dude, you want to smoke? Is 7A yes.

[Todd Tucker]

Hi. You're safe.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes. Is this me? Is it me? It is you.

[Todd Tucker]

Is this me? Hello? Is it me?

[Sam Cedar]

I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind?

[Todd Tucker]

We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm gonna go snow white. Libertarians. They're so stupid. Though common sense says of course.

[Emma Vigland]

Gobbledygook.

[Sam Cedar]

We nailed him.

[Emma Vigland]

So what's 79 plus 21?

[Sam Cedar]

Challenge, man.

[Todd Tucker]

I'm positively quivering.

[Sam Cedar]

I believe 96. I want to say. 8, 5, 7, 2, 1 0, 35, 5, 0, 11 half.

[Unknown]

3, 8, 9, 11.

[Sam Cedar]

For instance.

[Emma Vigland]

$34,400. $1900.

[Sam Cedar]

5 4, $3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero sum game.

[Todd Tucker]

Actually.

[Sam Cedar]

You're making me think less, but let me say this.

[Todd Tucker]

You can call it satire.

[Sam Cedar]

Sam goes to satire on top of it all. Yeah.

[Donald Trump]

My favorite part about you is just.

[Sam Cedar]

Like every day, all day, like everything you do. Without a doubt. Hey, buddy. We all right. Folks, folks, folks.

[Emma Vigland]

It's just the week being weeded out. Obviously.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah. Sun's out, guns out. I. I don't know. But you should know, people just don't.

[Unknown]

Like to entertain ideas anymore.

[Sam Cedar]

I have a question. Who cares?

[Unknown]

Our chat is an age.

[Sam Cedar]

I love it.

[Emma Vigland]

I do love that.

[Sam Cedar]

Gotta jump.

[Todd Tucker]

Gotta be quick.

[Sam Cedar]

I gotta jump. I'm losing it, bro. 2:00, we're already late and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulag.

[Emma Vigland]

Outrageous.

[Sam Cedar]

Like, what is wrong with you? Love you. Bye. Love you. Bye.