What are the key takeaways from this Marketplace episode?

Key insights include: **Stagflation Risk:** Q1 2025 GDP grew at only 0.7%, below expectations, while core PCE inflation broke above 3% and oil prices climbed into the $90+ range. When rising energy costs seep into supply chains across multiple industries simultaneously, inflation becomes harder to contain — watch Fed Chair Powell's language at next week's FOMC meeting for signals on rate cut timelines.; **Tariff Whack-a-Mole Strategy:** After the Supreme Court struck down Liberation Day tariffs in February, the Trump administration launched Section 232 and Section 301 trade investigations into dozens of countries — including Canada, Mexico, the UK, and the EU. Legal experts call new tariffs a "foregone conclusion," with the administration racing to finalize permanent replacements before temporary tariffs expire in July 2025.; **Third-Party Seller Risk:** Approximately 95% of products listed on Walmart.com come from third-party sellers. A Wirecutter experiment sent 13 beauty products purchased from third-party Amazon sellers to a cosmetic chemist — every single item tested as almost certainly counterfeit or showed red flags like bacterial growth, expired formulations, or signs of prior use. Buy cosmetics only from brand websites or authorized retail partners.

What did Rachel Siegel and Rose Mora Lorre discuss on Marketplace?

This March 13 episode covers four converging economic pressures: pre-war baseline data losing relevance as oil prices push core PCE inflation above 3%, the Trump administration's tariff whack-a-mole strategy after Supreme Court rulings, counterfeit beauty products on third-party platforms, and the CFTC's new scrutiny of largely unregulated prediction markets. Key topics include: **Stagflation Risk:** Q1 2025 GDP grew at only 0.7%, below expectations, while core PCE inflation broke above 3% and oil prices climbed into the $90+ range. When rising energy costs seep into supply chains across multiple industries simultaneously, inflation becomes harder to contain — watch Fed Chair Powell's language at next week's FOMC meeting for signals on rate cut timelines.; **Tariff Whack-a-Mole Strategy:** After the Supreme Court struck down Liberation Day tariffs in February, the Trump administration launched Section 232 and Section 301 trade investigations into dozens of countries — including Canada, Mexico, the UK, and the EU. Legal experts call new tariffs a "foregone conclusion," with the administration racing to finalize permanent replacements before temporary tariffs expire in July 2025..

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

Tariff whack-a-mole

March 13, 2026

25 min episode · 2 min read

Rachel Siegel,Rose Mora Lorre

Episode

25 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Relationships, Fundraising & VC, Product & Tech Trends

AI-Generated Summary

Published Mar 14, 2026

Key Takeaways

✓Stagflation Risk: Q1 2025 GDP grew at only 0.7%, below expectations, while core PCE inflation broke above 3% and oil prices climbed into the $90+ range. When rising energy costs seep into supply chains across multiple industries simultaneously, inflation becomes harder to contain — watch Fed Chair Powell's language at next week's FOMC meeting for signals on rate cut timelines.
✓Tariff Whack-a-Mole Strategy: After the Supreme Court struck down Liberation Day tariffs in February, the Trump administration launched Section 232 and Section 301 trade investigations into dozens of countries — including Canada, Mexico, the UK, and the EU. Legal experts call new tariffs a "foregone conclusion," with the administration racing to finalize permanent replacements before temporary tariffs expire in July 2025.
✓Third-Party Seller Risk: Approximately 95% of products listed on Walmart.com come from third-party sellers. A Wirecutter experiment sent 13 beauty products purchased from third-party Amazon sellers to a cosmetic chemist — every single item tested as almost certainly counterfeit or showed red flags like bacterial growth, expired formulations, or signs of prior use. Buy cosmetics only from brand websites or authorized retail partners.
✓SNAP Restriction Ripple Effects: About 20 states now have federal waivers to restrict SNAP purchases of items like soda and candy. Research suggests recipients will simply buy restricted items with non-SNAP dollars rather than change diets. The added administrative burden on retailers — who must classify items category by category — risks stores dropping SNAP acceptance entirely, reducing food access in rural areas.
✓Prediction Market Regulation Gap: Prediction markets processed over $40 billion in contracts in 2024 but operate under commodities futures regulations, bypassing the multi-layered integrity monitoring required of licensed sportsbooks. The CFTC issued new guidance encouraging coordination with sports leagues and fraud monitors, but compliance remains voluntary — Israeli authorities already arrested two people for using classified military intelligence to profit on Polymarket.

What It Covers

This March 13 episode covers four converging economic pressures: pre-war baseline data losing relevance as oil prices push core PCE inflation above 3%, the Trump administration's tariff whack-a-mole strategy after Supreme Court rulings, counterfeit beauty products on third-party platforms, and the CFTC's new scrutiny of largely unregulated prediction markets.

Key Questions Answered

•Stagflation Risk: Q1 2025 GDP grew at only 0.7%, below expectations, while core PCE inflation broke above 3% and oil prices climbed into the $90+ range. When rising energy costs seep into supply chains across multiple industries simultaneously, inflation becomes harder to contain — watch Fed Chair Powell's language at next week's FOMC meeting for signals on rate cut timelines.
•Tariff Whack-a-Mole Strategy: After the Supreme Court struck down Liberation Day tariffs in February, the Trump administration launched Section 232 and Section 301 trade investigations into dozens of countries — including Canada, Mexico, the UK, and the EU. Legal experts call new tariffs a "foregone conclusion," with the administration racing to finalize permanent replacements before temporary tariffs expire in July 2025.
•Third-Party Seller Risk: Approximately 95% of products listed on Walmart.com come from third-party sellers. A Wirecutter experiment sent 13 beauty products purchased from third-party Amazon sellers to a cosmetic chemist — every single item tested as almost certainly counterfeit or showed red flags like bacterial growth, expired formulations, or signs of prior use. Buy cosmetics only from brand websites or authorized retail partners.
•SNAP Restriction Ripple Effects: About 20 states now have federal waivers to restrict SNAP purchases of items like soda and candy. Research suggests recipients will simply buy restricted items with non-SNAP dollars rather than change diets. The added administrative burden on retailers — who must classify items category by category — risks stores dropping SNAP acceptance entirely, reducing food access in rural areas.
•Prediction Market Regulation Gap: Prediction markets processed over $40 billion in contracts in 2024 but operate under commodities futures regulations, bypassing the multi-layered integrity monitoring required of licensed sportsbooks. The CFTC issued new guidance encouraging coordination with sports leagues and fraud monitors, but compliance remains voluntary — Israeli authorities already arrested two people for using classified military intelligence to profit on Polymarket.

Notable Moment

A federal judge blocked subpoenas targeting Fed Chair Jerome Powell — subpoenas Powell linked to his Senate testimony about building renovations. The judge found the government produced virtually no evidence of criminal wrongdoing and concluded the subpoenas appeared designed to pressure Powell into cutting rates or resigning.

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Episode Transcript

This marketplace podcast is supported by BMC. Before AI makes real business decisions that can be trusted, before automation can reliably scale across every workflow, before every data pipeline is connected with intelligence, Today's businesses face some complex challenges ahead, tackling things like orchestration as a competitive advantage, unifying modern and legacy systems, or transforming mainframes. As they take them on, it's essential to do one thing, BMC first. BMC is the automation engine for the AI era. With decades of experience in automation and enterprise operations, BMC supports some of the world's most critical businesses as they adapt to emerging technologies and demands before automation, before scale, before transformation. BMC first. For more information, visit bmc.com. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo, the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier from CRM, accounting, inventory, ecommerce, and more. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. This is why over thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. Lately, five days in this economy has enough news to feel more like six. From American public media, this is Marketplace. In New York, I'm Kristen Schwab in for Kai Rizdahl. It's Friday, March 13, and it's good to be here with you. There are lots of eyes on what's happening abroad. Also, lots of eyes on a bunch of data we got today about the economy here. So let's get into what we can with the handful of minutes we have. Today it's just me and Rachel Siegel at The Washington Post. Hey Rachel. Hi, happy Friday. Happy Friday. So before we get into specific data numbers that we got today, I kinda wanna ask a bigger question, and that's, does the data matter? Because we're talking about January PCE, January Jolts, fourth quarter GDP. These numbers are all coming from a pre war economy. They are, and that economy feels like it might be pretty far away. I don't think the data is useless. It's always good to know what baseline you're working with. It's good to know what set of information is the freshest snapshot that policymakers are going to have. And I should say, it's good to know when the data gets revised. You know, we got a little bit of a more clear sense about what happened at the 2025. But then you're looking forward, and you're trying to figure out what to do with that data. And I think once again, we've got economists and policymakers and businesses and households saying, okay. But now things feel totally different, and how am I supposed to make any sense of it? Mhmm. Well, let's look back into some of that data and start with PCE. Core inflation broke 3%, and, …

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