Do trade deficits matter?

By Mary Childs,

Jeff Guo, Kenny Malone, Marianne McCune, Emma Peaslee

Published April 10, 2025 at 9:10 AM EDT

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 02: Charts that show the "reciprocal tariffs" the U.S. is charging other countries are on display at the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on April 2, 2025 in Washington, DC.

At the heart of President Trump's tariffs is this idea that we should not be buying more from other countries than they are buying from us. Basically, he wants to get rid of the trade deficit.

And in the wake of the tariff announcement we got a LOT of questions from listeners about what that means. Do trade deficits matter? Is it bad to have a trade deficit? Are we getting ripped off?

Today on the show – we tackle those questions.

This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Marianne McCune and Kenny Malone. It was fact checked by Sarah McClure and engineered by Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Music: NPR Source Audio - "The Westerners," "Liquid Courage," and "Blazed and Emboldened"

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Mary Childs

Mary Childs (she/her) is a co-host and correspondent for NPR's Planet Money podcast. Before joining the team in 2019, she was a senior reporter at Barron's magazine, where she covered the alternatives industry, the bond market and capitalism. Before that, she worked at the Financial Times and Bloomberg News. She's written about the pioneering of new asset classes like time, billionaire's proposals to solve inequality and diversity and discrimination in the finance industry. Before all that, she was also a Watson Fellow, spending a year traveling the world painting portraits. She graduated from Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, with a degree in business journalism and an honors thesis comparing the use and significance of media sting operations in the U.S. and India.

Jeff Guo

Jeff Guo (he/him) is a co-host and reporter for Planet Money, NPR's award-winning podcast that finds creative, entertaining ways to make sense of the complicated forces that move our economy. He joined the team in 2022.

Kenny Malone

Kenny Malone is a correspondent for NPR's Planet Money podcast. Before that, he was a reporter for WNYC's Only Human podcast. Before that, he was a reporter for Miami's WLRN. And before that, he was a reporter for his friend T.C.'s homemade newspaper, Neighborhood News.

Marianne McCune

Marianne McCune is a reporter and producer for Embedded: Buffalo Extreme who has more than two decades of experience making award-winning audio stories. She has produced narrative podcast series for New York Magazine (Cover Story), helped start, produce and edit long-form narrative shows for NPR and public radio affiliates (Rough Translation; United States of Anxiety, Season Four), reported locally and internationally (NPR News, NPR's Planet Money and WNYC News) and produced groundbreaking narrative audio tours (SF MOMA, Detour). She is also the founder of Radio Rookies, a narrative youth radio series, that is still thriving at WNYC.

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.

See stories by Emma Peaslee