What are the key takeaways from this Marketplace episode?

Key insights include: **Tariff Rate Volatility:** The effective U.S. tariff rate shifted three times in a single day — from 17% pre-ruling, to 9% post-ruling, then back toward 15% after the president invoked Section 122 authority. Businesses and importers should model scenarios around 10–17% tariff floors rather than assuming any ruling produces lasting rate stability.; **Consumer Price Relief Is Unlikely:** Even with IEEPA tariffs struck down, retail prices will not fall. Businesses that already raised prices to offset tariffs have no incentive to reverse those increases, especially with replacement tariffs arriving immediately. Consumers and procurement teams should budget for sustained elevated prices rather than anticipating near-term relief from the ruling.; **Transhipping as Legal Tariff Mitigation:** Manufacturers can legally reduce Chinese tariff exposure by shipping components to a third country — Vietnam is a common example — assembling them there, and claiming that country as origin, provided the product undergoes "substantial transformation." However, no standardized legal definition of substantial transformation exists, creating product-by-product legal risk that supply chain managers must evaluate individually.

What did Martha Gimbel and Gretchen Blau discuss on Marketplace?

The Supreme Court struck down Trump's IEEPA tariffs in a 6-3 ruling, dropping the effective tariff rate from 17% to 9%, but the president announced replacement 10% tariffs under separate legal authority, pushing rates back toward 15%. Economists, farmers, customs brokers, and small business owners assess the ongoing uncertainty. Key topics include: **Tariff Rate Volatility:** The effective U.S. tariff rate shifted three times in a single day — from 17% pre-ruling, to 9% post-ruling, then back toward 15% after the president invoked Section 122 authority. Businesses and importers should model scenarios around 10–17% tariff floors rather than assuming any ruling produces lasting rate stability.; **Consumer Price Relief Is Unlikely:** Even with IEEPA tariffs struck down, retail prices will not fall. Businesses that already raised prices to offset tariffs have no incentive to reverse those increases, especially with replacement tariffs arriving immediately. Consumers and procurement teams should budget for sustained elevated prices rather than anticipating near-term relief from the ruling..

How long is this episode of Marketplace?

This episode is 25 minutes long. SignalCast provides an AI-generated summary so you can get the key insights in about 3 minutes.

Marketplace

How to dodge tariffs on Chinese goods

February 20, 2026

25 min episode · 2 min read

Martha Gimbel,Gretchen Blau,April Hemmings

Episode

25 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Health & Wellness, Fundraising & VC, Leadership

AI-Generated Summary

Published Feb 22, 2026

Key Takeaways

✓Tariff Rate Volatility: The effective U.S. tariff rate shifted three times in a single day — from 17% pre-ruling, to 9% post-ruling, then back toward 15% after the president invoked Section 122 authority. Businesses and importers should model scenarios around 10–17% tariff floors rather than assuming any ruling produces lasting rate stability.
✓Consumer Price Relief Is Unlikely: Even with IEEPA tariffs struck down, retail prices will not fall. Businesses that already raised prices to offset tariffs have no incentive to reverse those increases, especially with replacement tariffs arriving immediately. Consumers and procurement teams should budget for sustained elevated prices rather than anticipating near-term relief from the ruling.
✓Transhipping as Legal Tariff Mitigation: Manufacturers can legally reduce Chinese tariff exposure by shipping components to a third country — Vietnam is a common example — assembling them there, and claiming that country as origin, provided the product undergoes "substantial transformation." However, no standardized legal definition of substantial transformation exists, creating product-by-product legal risk that supply chain managers must evaluate individually.
✓$150 Billion Refund Outcome Remains Unresolved: Roughly $150 billion in IEEPA tariffs collected from importers is now legally contested, but the Treasury has signaled refunds are not guaranteed. Businesses with significant duty payments should engage customs counsel immediately to file or preserve claims, rather than assuming automatic reimbursement, as the Supreme Court left refund eligibility explicitly open.
✓Agricultural Export Markets Structurally Weakened: The Chinese market for U.S. soybeans has diminished beyond tariff effects alone — Brazil now undercuts U.S. prices structurally, and China has modernized livestock feeding practices reducing import demand. Farmers planning 2026 crop allocations should not factor Chinese demand recovery into revenue projections regardless of any near-term trade policy shifts.

What It Covers

The Supreme Court struck down Trump's IEEPA tariffs in a 6-3 ruling, dropping the effective tariff rate from 17% to 9%, but the president announced replacement 10% tariffs under separate legal authority, pushing rates back toward 15%. Economists, farmers, customs brokers, and small business owners assess the ongoing uncertainty.

Key Questions Answered

•Tariff Rate Volatility: The effective U.S. tariff rate shifted three times in a single day — from 17% pre-ruling, to 9% post-ruling, then back toward 15% after the president invoked Section 122 authority. Businesses and importers should model scenarios around 10–17% tariff floors rather than assuming any ruling produces lasting rate stability.
•Consumer Price Relief Is Unlikely: Even with IEEPA tariffs struck down, retail prices will not fall. Businesses that already raised prices to offset tariffs have no incentive to reverse those increases, especially with replacement tariffs arriving immediately. Consumers and procurement teams should budget for sustained elevated prices rather than anticipating near-term relief from the ruling.
•Transhipping as Legal Tariff Mitigation: Manufacturers can legally reduce Chinese tariff exposure by shipping components to a third country — Vietnam is a common example — assembling them there, and claiming that country as origin, provided the product undergoes "substantial transformation." However, no standardized legal definition of substantial transformation exists, creating product-by-product legal risk that supply chain managers must evaluate individually.
•$150 Billion Refund Outcome Remains Unresolved: Roughly $150 billion in IEEPA tariffs collected from importers is now legally contested, but the Treasury has signaled refunds are not guaranteed. Businesses with significant duty payments should engage customs counsel immediately to file or preserve claims, rather than assuming automatic reimbursement, as the Supreme Court left refund eligibility explicitly open.
•Agricultural Export Markets Structurally Weakened: The Chinese market for U.S. soybeans has diminished beyond tariff effects alone — Brazil now undercuts U.S. prices structurally, and China has modernized livestock feeding practices reducing import demand. Farmers planning 2026 crop allocations should not factor Chinese demand recovery into revenue projections regardless of any near-term trade policy shifts.

Notable Moment

A Iowa corn and soybean farmer noted that farm input costs — seeds, chemicals, equipment — will not decrease even if tariffs are removed, because those purchases are already locked in for the upcoming planting season. She described 2026 as potentially worse than 2025 for agricultural profitability.

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Episode Transcript

This marketplace podcast is supported by Faye Gree Drinker, one of the largest law firms in Minnesota. With nearly 300 Minneapolis attorneys helping clients solve complex legal issues and meeting their goals in the Twin Cities and beyond. Faygraydrinker.com. Programming supported by Minnesota Carlson and their first Tuesday speaker series at the University of Minnesota, featuring candid conversations with some of the biggest names in business. More at z.umn.edu/firsttuesday. Great certainty has been brought back to, the economy of The United States and actually the economy of the world. Has it? No. Really? From American public media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Risdall. It is Friday today, the February 20. Good as always to have you along, everybody. Six to three was the tally in the Supreme Court of the United States today, as you have no doubt heard, striking down president Trump's Tariff Palooza of April. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act was the statute in question, but it is important to understand here that tariff free, we are not, which is among the things I'm gonna talk about with Martha Gimbel right now. She's she's the executive director of the Budget Lab at Yale. Martha, it's good to have you back on the program. Thank you for having me. Alright. So let us test my hypothesis or the president's hypothesis, I suppose. Has certainty been restored? I certainly feel less certain about tariffs than I felt this morning. Just to give you an idea of what my team who looks at this has been up to today, Going into this morning, tariffs were almost 17%. Once the Supreme Court ruled, they went down to 9%. That was at 10AM. And then the president gave his press conference today. Yeah. Exactly. And then the president gave a press conference where he said that he was imposing 10% tariffs under a different legal authority, but that would be temporary, but then they would replace it with other things that were to come. And then that should take it back up to around 15%. So there's been a lot of Sturm und Drang today, but it looks like we're sort of back where we are, but we're still figuring it out. So let's let's recap briefly. Right? IEPAA tariffs are gone, but there are and this is the nomenclature, and I apologize to listeners. But there are section two thirty two tariffs, three zero one tariffs, now one twenty two tariffs from various trade adjustment acts of of years gone by. Now what happens? Let's say, we stayed 15%. Macroeconomically, what do you suppose happens? So, you know, we would expect the impacts to be similar to what we've been talking about since we started with this whole Mishigosh. Right? That you're gonna see upward pressure on prices, you know, that it's gonna be about $1,600 for a average household. You're gonna see slower economic growth, a slight rise in the unemployment rate, and you're gonna raise a …

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