With a key tariff strategy blocked, the White House eyes alternatives
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LHH doesn't just find beautiful moments at work. LHH creates them. Recruitment, development, career transition. LHH, a beautiful working world. Learn more at LHH.com slash beautiful. With a key strategy for tariffs ruled illegal, the Trump administration does have alternatives. I'm David Brancaccio in New York.

Now that a federal court dedicated to trade cases has struck down the big package of Trump administration tariffs announced on what the president had called Liberation Day, the White House promises to appeal. And presidents have other tariff powers using legal strategies with stronger track records.

The stock market has moved up on the tariff news, but not wildly so. The Dow is up 71 points, less than two-tenths percent. The S&P is up seven-tenths of a percent. The Nasdaq is up 1.2 percent. Tariff uncertainty is still with us. Diane Swonk is chief economist at the audit tax and advisory firm KPMG.

Many of the tariffs that were already levered on everything from aluminum to steel to motor vehicles are still in place. And then on top of it, we have tariffs in the pipeline on everything from semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, copper, lumber. And then there's other levers the government could pull. Let us not forget that these tariffs were supposed to play a key role in offsetting the tax burden.

and expansions to tax cuts that Congress is now trying to go through in its reconciliation process. So it leaves us in a very uncertain period where we're already seeing major disruptions to supply chains, not all that unreminiscent of the pandemic. Right. I mean, and just to put a finer point on it, if you're a CEO sitting there with your team and a spreadsheet trying to figure out, do I build this new factory? Do I hire a few more people?

It's hard to put the tariff part of this into your calculations. Exactly. Even to the extent of the other tariffs that have been levied and collected so far, they may be refundable. That's an administrative nightmare to refund people who have paid tariffs back to companies that can claim it back. So there's a lot that's still up in the air. And in fact, this only adds another layer to the uncertainty with regard to tariffs and what they mean going forward.

Diane Swonk, Chief Economist, KPMG. Thank you. Thank you. Bond market is up a bit right now, helping the 10-year interest rate drop down slightly to 4.44%.

Rebuilding a home with extreme weather in mind can make a big difference when disaster strikes. There's data on wildfires, but a new report from the University of Alabama Center for Risk and Insurance finds that homes can also be built to better stand up to intense wind and rain, saving homeowners and insurance company millions. Marketplace's Samantha Fields has more.

Twenty years ago, Alabama was hit hard by back-to-back hurricanes, Ivan and Katrina. In the aftermath, insurance companies started jacking up rates or leaving altogether. And when the rebuilding started… We saw people putting the same old roofs back on those houses and knew that the next storm, we were just going to blow off again. Mark Fowler is Alabama's insurance commissioner. And we just knew that we had to do something different.

The state started offering homeowners grants and insurance discounts to make their homes more resilient to wind and rain. Fred Malick at the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety says this new study found homes built to the nonprofit's standards were much less likely to sustain hurricane damage and put in costly insurance claims. That means lower financial disruption for homeowners. That means faster recovery times. It also means a more stable insurance market, says Commissioner Fowler.

When you have less damage and less claims, now you have more insurable homes and it results in lower rates. He says that benefits homeowners and the state's economy. I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace.

Looking to reshore your operations? Global conversations about tariffs make now the time to act. Puerto Rico is the ideal place, a U.S. jurisdiction with lower costs, made-in-USA labeling, and unmatched incentives. Join global leaders like Amgen and Eli Lilly in an ecosystem built over 75 years, home to top pharma and medical device production, a deep talent pool, and world-class bioscience infrastructure.

Puerto Rico, your cost-effective reshoring solution. Visit investpr.org slash reshore to get started. This Marketplace podcast is supported by Greenlight. As a listener of Marketplace, you're likely already building smart money habits for you and your family, trying to instill important lessons on saving and spending and the economy overall in the younger folks in your life.

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And with added safety tools like SOS and crash alerts, along with location sharing, you can keep an eye on both your family's wallet and their well-being. Take care of your whole family, from kids to grandparents, with Family Shield from Greenlight. Sign up today at greenlight.com slash marketplace.

Now to the personal economics of deciding when to have a child, including the option of having a baby without a partner. Note that you might want to consider the ages of who is listening right now near you, since the following piece will include references to some reproductive procedures. Organizations like fertility clinics and sperm banks report more clients who don't have partners. Reporter Veronica Zaragoza has more.

Some women say the decision to get pregnant using fertility treatments is out of necessity, not choice. Ellen Glazer is a clinical social worker in private practice in the Boston area. She counsels women who are in their late 30s to early 40s.

These women are really saying, this is not how I envision my life, but they don't want to lose the opportunity to try with their own eggs. Time is short to get pregnant, so they make a decision that's expensive, not just because of the treatment, but also the cost of parenting.

And that plays a huge factor in whether they think they can do it on their own. At-home insemination kits start at about $130. The next level is intrauterine insemination. Then there's in vitro fertilization, or IVF, which can cost more than $40,000 for a successful pregnancy. You have to recreate the natural conditions on your body in the lab.

Dr. Fernando Ackerman is the medical director of the Fertility Center of Miami. There is a lot that goes into fertilizing an egg and implanting an embryo. Ackerman points to the incubators, temperature requirements, and patient's anesthesia. That is what is increasing the cost of the procedure.

And that cost is why some women opt for IVF abroad. Lydia Desnoyers from Miami is 41. She chose IVF to become a single mom. I was financially in a really good place. Emotionally, mentally, I was just ready. The only thing I wanted most at that point was becoming a mom. Desnoyers chose a fertility center in Barbados to try intrauterine insemination first.

When that didn't work, she tried IVF and got pregnant. She paid nearly $17,000 for all of it. Dissnoyers now enjoys reading time with her almost two-year-old daughter, Lady. When I'm sweet, when I'm smelly, God knows I'm sweet.

Smelly socks. Good job. She's an accountant and also coaches other women interested in single motherhood, too. It doesn't mean that I can't meet somebody later. It doesn't mean that I can't meet a wonderful man who probably already has kids himself. And we have a blended family and it works out. She no longer feels the pressure of dating just to meet a father for her children. And that, Desnoyer says, is priceless. In Miami, I'm Veronica Saragovia for Marketplace.

In New York, I'm David Brancaccio. It's the Marketplace Morning Report from APM American Public Media.

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