This is Planet Money from NPR.
Welcome back to Planet Money Summer School,
the only economics class you can slip under your pillow and listen to as you fall asleep.
Just drift away.
I'll wake you for the vocabulary words.
We are almost done with the summer semester,
and what a romp we have had through the world of government and business.
We've had classes on the power of federal taxes and the dangers of federal spending.
We've taught you how a country can make industrial policy work and why sometimes markets fail.
But there is one big area we have not touched until today.
Trade.
Yes, yes, I know.
As I'm sure you have noticed, trade policy, specifically tariffs, are in the news.
every single day.
So today on Planet Money Summer School,
we're going to step back a little and talk about the bigger picture of trade policy.
Tariffs are, of course, the favorite tool of our current president,
but there are lots of other ways that governments insert themselves into the free exchange of goods and services.
Some of these trade barriers are so insidious and have been going on for so long,
it may surprise you that they even exist.