May 9, 2025· 40 min

Sarah LaFleur On the Existential Threat From the Tariffs

Orality
Model
89%
Highly oral (epic poetry, sermons, hip-hop)

Speaker Breakdown

HostTracy Alloway(4,537 words)
M:94%
HostJoe Weisenthal(1,710 words)
M:94%
GuestSarah LaFleur(1,213 words)
M:94%

Oral Indicators

Agonistic35%
basically, literally, obviously
Engagement96%
you, our, your
Memory Aids100%
listen, so, like
Repetition100%
like (165x), know (127x), it's (72x)
Parallelism75%
So have you heard the story ab..., And I'm Joe Weisenthal...., So funny....
Sound Patterns100%
87 question(s), alliteration: "markets move", alliteration: "barclays brief"
Formulaic Phrases5%
you know what, i mean

Literate Indicators

Hedging11%
may, could, might
Passive Voice4%
be affected, were revealed, is when
Abstract Nouns14%
investment, prescription, medication
Subordination8%
because, although, though
Sentence Length26%
Avg: 11.6 words/sentence
Word Complexity46%
investment, analyze, anticipate
Academic Markers0%
Impersonal Style4%
793 personal pronouns found
Descriptive Style93%
automatically, family, inadvertently

Description

America's textile industry has famously declined over the years, with a bunch of production moving to lower-cost places like China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. Now, with the Trump administration imposing heavy tariffs on exports from these countries, the US clothing industry is facing another big shock. In this episode we speak with Sarah LaFleur, founder and CEO of M.M.LaFleur, which makes high-quality work clothing for women (Tracy is a big fan). She walks us through what the past month has actually been like for a smaller clothing business trying to understand and deal with the tariffs. We talk about the conversations she's been having with mills and factories in China, how the tariffs are already impacting future seasons of clothing, the scramble to secure space on ships before the tariffs hit, and how businesses actually pay the new taxes. Read more: A New ‘China Shock’ Is Destroying Jobs Around the World One Ship, $417 Million in New Tariffs: The Cost of Trump’s Trade War Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox — now delivered every weekday — plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.