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The 145% tariff already did its damage

By Sarah Gonzalez,
Jess Jiang, Emma Peaslee
Published May 17, 2025 at 3:52 PM EDT
There is normally a cargo ship, parked, getting unloaded under the cranes. But the 145% tariff on imports from China brought shipping way down. And it'll take a while for the shipping volumes to return at the Port of Los Angeles.
Sarah Gonzalez
/
NPR
There is normally a cargo ship, parked, getting unloaded under the cranes. But the 145% tariff on imports from China brought shipping way down. And it'll take a while for the shipping volumes to return at the Port of Los Angeles.

Even though the 145% tariff on Chinese imports only lasted a month, it already inflicted its scars on the economy. Global trade is just not something you can turn off and on like that.

Some companies got really unlucky. Like those whose goods arrived at U.S. ports before the pause. If a medium size company had a million dollars worth of goods imported, they had to pay an extra million and a half dollars on top of that – just for the tariff.

Today we are bringing you a portrait of this unfathomably high tariff. What a month of 145% tariffs looked like and felt like for three people in the global economy whose lives were all affected and still will be. The ones who got lucky and the ones who got really unlucky.

This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang. It was engineered by Jimmy Keeley and fact-checked by Willa Rubin. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Music: NPR Source Audio - "Bass Talks," "Bassline Motion," and "What Da Funk"

Copyright 2025 NPR

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Business Trump second administrationTariff
Sarah Gonzalez
Sarah Gonzalez is a host and reporter with Planet Money, NPR's award-winning podcast that finds creative, entertaining ways to make sense of the big, complicated forces that move our economy. She joined the team in April 2018.
Jess Jiang
Jess Jiang is the producer for NPR's international podcast, Rough Translation. Previously, Jess was a producer for Planet Money. In 2014, she won an Emmy for the team's T-shirt project. She followed the start of the t-shirt's journey, from cotton farms in Mississippi to factories in Indonesia. But her biggest prize has been getting to drive a forklift, back hoe, and a 35-ton digger for a story. Jess got her start in public radio at Studio 360—though, if you search hard enough, you can uncover a podcast she made back in college.
See stories by Jess Jiang
Emma Peaslee
Emma Peaslee is a 2020-21 Kroc Fellow. Before coming to NPR, she reported for Atlanta's member station, WABE. She covered public forums about toxic chemicals leaking into neighborhoods, the world's largest 10K race, and the federal government's plan to resume executions. Peaslee has a master's degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where her work received the 2020 Edward R. Murrow Award for best student newscast. She is a Minnesota native.