Should companies advertise tariff-related price increases?
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Transparency, politics, and what goes into the prices you pay on Amazon. I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. After a published report that Amazon was planning to break out for customers how much tariffs were raising prices on individual items, there was sharp pushback from the White House. A spokesperson called this quote a hostile and political act. Amazon says that plan is now off the table. Other companies are displaying the

This in their pricing. Timu is listing import charges at checkout. Volkswagen said earlier this month it would display an import fee. Marketplace's Samantha Fields reports.

These days, Mark Cohen, the recently retired director of retail studies at Columbia Business School, is getting a lot of phone calls from people he knows in the fashion business. They're calling me looking for an opinion as to whether they should mark their prices as being tariff-driven. And my answer is, yes, you bet. Because if you're a customer and you go to a store to buy something you're used to getting for $100 and it's suddenly $150...

I think you deserve an explanation. But Cohen says businesses are torn between wanting to give that explanation and being concerned it might not go over well. Nitin Jan at Alex Partners says they have reason to be. Because of the backlash that many retailers have seen in the recent pasts,

Retailers are conscious about not taking a political view. But just increasing prices may cause its own backlash. Arun Sundaram at CFRA Research says some businesses may have no choice, but others like big box retailers are looking to avoid it. They're trying to move sourcing out of China, for example, or work with different suppliers. A lot of them have also been buying inventory in advance. To keep prices down, at least for now.

I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace. Later this morning, we'll get an early calculation of economic growth or contraction in America, gross domestic product for January through March. This figure could be distorted by companies doing extra importing ahead of tariffs and forecasts range from slowing growth to negative growth. We'll see. What we do know at this hour is that factory activity in China fell for the month that is just ending. The BBC's Nick Marsh has that.

The extent of this drop is down in part to a flurry of exports last month, as manufacturers rushed to ship out goods just before the tariffs kicked in.

But even so, China has been hurt by the enormous 145% levies imposed by the United States. Neither side so far has made the first move towards negotiations in this trade war, which China's leadership has vowed to fight until the bitter end if necessary.

The 100 days of President Trump's second term are in part defined by sweeping interventions in the economy. Here's Marketplace's Nova Safo.

On January 20th of this year, the U.S. economy was on solid footing. President Trump inherited an economy that was firing on most but not all cylinders. Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, says 100 days into the Trump administration, the outlook has changed dramatically. In any given year, the probability of a recession is around 15 percent. Now it's essentially a flip of the coin whether or not we have a

a recession this year. Sweet points to two culprits, tariffs and the uncertainty surrounding them. Small businesses in particular have raised alarms, and a few have sued the Trump administration.

Still, the hard data for now shows the economy continues to do fairly well. Jay Bryson, chief economist at Wells Fargo, says that's because consumers who power the U.S. economy have been trying to get ahead of tariffs. If you think tariffs are going to go into effect, if you think the prices of things that you're going to buy are going to be higher in a few months than they are now, you have a real incentive to go out there and buy them today.

Retailers planned ahead too. Jody Levine of the global freight booking platform Freightos says volumes from China and elsewhere to the U.S. skyrocketed in March. So because a lot of importers have brought in a lot of goods ahead of time, they're going to rely on the inventory surplus for now and basically wait as long as they can before they have to restock.

The actions so far from importers and consumers mean there is a lag time between when tariffs are imposed and their effects clearly showing up in the real economy.

Looking ahead, Jay Bryson of Wells Fargo will be paying close attention to jobless claims data for signs that the tariffs could be pushing the economy into recession. The labor market is a very coincident indicator of what's going on in the economy. If the labor market is holding up pretty well, then the economy is holding up pretty well.

Some damage is already done, though. The International Monetary Fund updated its outlook, now expecting a half a percentage point drop this year in global economic growth. And growth in the U.S. is expected to shrink as well. A year ago, we were talking about when is that soft landing happening? That's David Bieri, associate professor of public policy at Virginia Tech.

Soft landing, as in the concept of lowering inflation while keeping the labor market healthy. One thing that we can say for sure, we are not in the period of looking for a soft landing in the next six to 12 months. The rest, Biary says, is harder to predict.

because of the magnitude of the shakeup of the global economic order that President Trump has imposed in his first 100 days in office. Because it is so unprecedented, and the government is at the source of most of the uncertainty, and there is no way that we can protect ourselves from that. Biary takes comfort in one precedent, though. COVID, he says, proved the U.S. economy is very resilient.

and over time can withstand strong shocks.

I'm Novosafo for Marketplace. And a media watchdog working with Stanford researchers is warning today that young people, including teenagers and children, should not use artificial intelligence apps with digital characters that act as companions. Common Sense Media is a nonprofit. Its report warns these systems can interact with sexual content or encourage self-harm. Some of the apps, including Nomi or Replica, are supposed to be adults only.

In Los Angeles, I'm David Brancaccio. It's the Marketplace Morning Report from APM American Public Media. If there's one thing we know about social media, it's that misinformation is everywhere, especially when it comes to personal finance. Financially Inclined from Marketplace is a podcast you can trust to help you get serious about your money so you can build a life you've always dreamed of.

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