Abdullah Fayyad
Appearances
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
My name is Abdullah Fayyad. I'm 21 years old.
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
I feel very freedom. I feel freedom. I feel free. I can express my feelings, my ideas, everything I will think about, I will say it without any hesitation.
Global News Podcast
The secret police's grip on Syria under Assad
I hope it's going to be better. I hope the economic system here will be better than before. I hope we can buy cars, my dream car. Yes, I hope everything will be fine. Every word, here Syria, peace and love.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
It's really hard to understand what Trump really sees in tariffs altogether. And that's because he really seems to view them as a solution to everything. He's been railing about tariffs for a long time. And since he came in this time around, you know, he went out swinging for tariffs for all these different reasons.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
not just a matter of addressing trade deficits or protectionism for our domestic manufacturers of helping industries grow in the United States. He's also talked about tariffs for curbing immigration and fentanyl. He's talked about tariffs as a means, as a negotiating chip to close in on a TikTok deal with China.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
So, you know, they're kind of all over the place. He wants them to raise a lot of revenue for the United States. And he also seems to want to use them, you know, for the more traditional protectionist policy of helping prop up domestic industries, you know, like certain manufacturing industries, be it, you know, steel industry, automakers, the auto industry and things of that nature.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
You know, tariffs are a tool, you know, in the industrial policy toolkit. And there are times where they can be useful. But the problem is, is when you over rely on them, you know, the costs are much greater than the benefits.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
You know, when Trump is implementing tariffs in the way that he is, broad-based tariffs on all imports, 10% and higher, you know, from countries, be they adversaries or allies. When you're implementing tariffs that way, the costs are going to be higher than the benefits because essentially, you know, tariffs are a consumption tax.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
They are indirectly a tax on consumers because companies will eventually raise their prices in order to offset the tax. So consumers do bear the brunt of tariffs. Prices will go up. There will be an inflationary aspect of this policy which will probably get people upset.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
It could also actually end up limiting trade and causing a shortage of supply, which might also drive prices up.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
they are a tool that ought to be used sometimes. And I think one example of this is part of the reason countries might be interested in levying a tariff on imports is to protect certain industries that serve the national interest. It could also be because out of national security reasons, you want to have some level of control over the supply chain so that in the event of a war or a pandemic,
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
A disruption in the supply chains won't make you have a shortage of a crucial good. So there are reasons why you want to prop up certain domestic industries, and they can serve you well. One example of this is that if we import a lot of goods from, say, China, which has bad labor laws and labor protections and very low wages –
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
those goods are going to be cheaper than goods produced in the United States. Part of the reason why goods that are made in the United States are very expensive is because we have higher labor costs. Now, that puts American companies in a difficult spot because then they have to choose between either having competitive prices or paying their workers well.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
So you have to balance that out as a government and think about – You know, what exactly is the problem that we're trying to solve here and how can tariffs be a tool? Should they be a tool that we use here to solve that problem? And in some cases, the answer is yes.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
Well, that's again why Trump, you know, in theory, a lot of what he says might make sense if you don't pay too close attention to what he's doing. You know, if you implement tariffs on foreign cars, domestically manufactured cars will be more appealing for consumers because they might be cheaper. But the reality of this policy is that he's going to slap a 25 percent tariff on foreign cars.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
And he's also going to slap a tariff on auto parts. So the expectation here is not just that foreign cars are going to get more expensive for American consumers, but domestic cars are going to get more expensive because producing them, manufacturing them is going to cost more.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
So the cost of production for American car companies is going to spike even if they are producing their cars here in the United States.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
To be honest, I don't really know. I have no idea because I don't think it's possible for them to raise that much money. You know, tariffs used to generate a lot of federal revenue before we had things like an income tax. The reality, though, is that tariffs can't replace the income tax, especially in the way that Trump himself is talking about tariffs. Because
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
He's talking about tariffs as something that he will lift if countries agree to his terms on certain things. You know, like you can't really talk about this as a permanent revenue stream while also talking about it as a negotiating chip for other things. You kind of have to pick a lane and understand why you're implementing them in the first place.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
I mean chances are they will affect the American economy pretty negatively and chances are they will affect people's wallets really negatively. Essentially, you're not necessarily guaranteeing that American prices are going to stay stable. Manufacturing in the United States will become more expensive because you're going to still be importing raw materials that have tariffs on them.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
So the cost of production is going to go up also for American companies. So we are going to see prices rise. The question is, That we don't really know right now is to what degree we're going to see price hikes across the board or in certain industries.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
But this is likely, if this is a policy that Trump sticks with, which I think is a big if because he has been so back and forth on this for a long time. That could, you know, anger a lot of people. It could cause people to fear for, you know, their economic stability, their financial stability rather, you know, and whether or not they're going to be OK in a year from now.
Today, Explained
The day after "Liberation Day"
And, you know, that's why, you know, one of the economists I was talking with who was talking about how tariffs can sometimes be beneficial and how you can tailor them to be beneficial is he was just saying, don't judge the tool by the craftsman that's mishandling it. So that's kind of what we can expect.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
I'm a writer at Vox, and I write a lot about race and class.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
I think that's a great question that is on a lot of people's minds right now. We've seen companies like Meta, companies like McDonald's, Amazon, Target, a lot of companies essentially pull back on their DEI programming and roll it back. And people should be worried.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
Obviously, what that means for a lot of people of minority backgrounds and employees is that they might not have the kind of support system that they have come to rely on in a lot of workplaces. And that's why it's on everybody at these companies, every member of the workforce, to hold their companies and their own bosses accountable.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
I don't think it's naive. I think people's intentions are good and in the right place. And I do think a lot of tangible change can come of it. It is naive, though, to just think that having one DEI officer in a prominent position is going to fix everything or that representation is a solution to anything.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
So if a company is kind of standoffish about what's working and what's not, then chances are it's not really interested. You know, I think part of this is why there is so much criticism about the DEI quote unquote industry as a whole. It has been dubbed the DEI industrial complex by some because there have been a lot of consultants hired without the actual intent to make any tangible changes.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
And, you know, that's to the tune of billions of dollars. Companies do spend billions of dollars collectively on DEI programming. They're just not spending it on the right things. Like pay equity. Yeah, exactly.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
Well, it's interesting because, you know, the history of this really does start with federal workers, or at least federal contractors, starting in the 1960s.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
A lot of people now think of DEI just because it's a buzzword.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
It's become part of the culture wars, a big part of the Republican crusade in this Trump administration is to attack DEI. But it really goes back many decades when President Kennedy signed an executive order that required federal contractors to actively not discriminate in their hiring process. That was followed by an actual tangible law passed by Congress, the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
which required all companies of a certain size to make sure that they do not discriminate against their employees or people they might hire.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
You know, and this eventually evolved into DEI as we know it today. Private companies really took it and ran with it. We started seeing companies in the 1960s, late 1960s, early 1970s, not just complying with the law, but going a little bit further. So at first, you know, these all look similar to what we know now, you know, anti-harassment training, things like that, that were
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
you know, essentially targeted at making sure that employees and companies complied with the law so that they're not liable. But there were companies like IBM that took it a step further. Maybe it was to avoid bad press. Maybe it was to get good press. This idea that this wasn't just something that we have to do in order to comply with the law, but it's a matter of
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
corporate social responsibility. And so, you know, that's kind of the DEI that we know it today came from that origin.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
Well, yeah, I mean, DEI, like you noted, I mean, it's become a slur. It's become oftentimes a racial or sexist slur. Anytime there is a woman in a position that's higher position, you know, it's said to be a DEI hire. Anytime it's a non-white person, it's a DEI hire, no matter how many qualifications they have for that job. We've got it. DEI hire in here?
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
On the right, we keep hearing this repeated talking point that these are DEI hires. But DEI, as it is today in companies, takes many forms. Most notable is, you know, things that have been around for a really long time.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
So anytime you start a new job at a company, chances are you had to sit through, you know, these trainings about harassment in the workplace, be it sexual harassment, racism, implicit bias training. And then we see other initiatives as well that companies take on, you know, celebrations of certain heritage months and heritage events and things like that.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
But another major part of DEI is just to make sure that your recruitment process is fair. It's not a matter of, oh, we need quotas or we need to make sure that there are only a certain amount of white men in management or in certain parts of a company. A lot of DEI is to make sure that we have an equal employment opportunities.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
I think this kind of really evolved out of the 1980s when companies started to see diversity in hiring and just diversity more broadly as not just a moral thing to do, but that it was actually good for your bottom line as well. I don't know that there are many studies that show that a diverse workforce creates more profits necessarily, but where that really came from
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
In 1987, there was a report from a think tank called the Hudson Institute. The report was called Workforce 2000. In the year 2000. This came out in 1987, and it kind of took the corporate world by storm. It went viral at the time, if that's not a word that was used then. Their version of viral.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
This was a report that every major company was reading, and it essentially was making predictions for what the American workforce was going to look like in the year 2000. And it was telling these companies that the workforce is diversifying at a really rapid rate, both by gender and by race, immigrant status and the like.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
And essentially, companies really took that to heart because they wanted to remain competitive. And to remain competitive, you had to be competitive among the workforce, not just consumers. But if you wanted to hire good talent and the workforce was changing, these companies really tried to change their policies in order to adapt to this new world that was being created in the U.S.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
for a more diverse workforce. So that's the kind of business argument, that's where it started from.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
Well, I mean, I think M is not too far off. I happen to agree with a lot of what they said, you know, which is a lot of the DEI initiatives that we have seen at many major companies, at academic institutions, have largely been performative. And that's why what we see oftentimes and why there's a lot of criticism of DEI programs, not just from the right, but from the left as well.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
You bring in a speaker, a one-time thing, or you do anti-harassment trainings and implicit bias trainings that study after study have shown have been largely ineffective, and some studies have actually shown them cause antagonism. They have been antagonizing some people in management.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
But the reason we do it is in large part because companies are performing for their employees, showing them that they are saying the right things, but it doesn't always mean that they're doing the right things. You know, one of the best examples of this is that, you know, we see pay discrimination at company after company after company.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
And no matter what the law is, we have not seen this get corrected.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
In, you know, the 2000s, the 2010s, with the rise of movements like Black Lives Matter, the Me Too movement, you know, we saw a lot of companies take a more active PR stance. So they all, you know, wanted to say the right things.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
Where maybe this had reached a peak right after the George Floyd protests when a lot of companies were doing a lot of work to, you know, quickly diversify or to double down on the programming that they had. And to do these listening tours with employees and all of these kinds of initiatives. And we saw companies all across the board do this from fashion brands to fast food companies.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
And since then, you know, there has been a careful, slow and deliberate attack on DEI from the right that has gained traction.
Today, Explained
Did diversity ever work ... at work?
That was a huge deal, and now we're seeing schools become less diverse in enrollment as a result. Obviously, DEI and affirmative action are not the same thing, but they are rooted in the same history and they have the same ideals, essentially, the same goals.