Remember the day eggs started costing more than my Uber from Arlington to U Street? 😤 Or how about when your favorite Afrobeat tee is taking forever to ship — and when it finally lands, you’re slapped with a customs fee that feels personal?
Well, the answer might surprise you: tariffs.
Yeah, yeah — I know. It sounds like the driest topic in Econ 101. But stay with me — because these boring ol’ border taxes that I struggled to explain in the video above might just be the quiet levers controlling the price of your food, your tech, your clothes… even how fast we build a clean, local economy in the DMV.
Tariffs are a tool of governance.
They can uplift local manufacturing and regenerative ag… or they can jack up prices and slow down the transition to clean energy. While Trump has hit pause with a 90-day tariff freeze, we still need to understand the long game. Because the policies made in back rooms and boardrooms have ripple effects on community gardens, bike shops, food co-ops, and green energy hubs from Shaw to Silver Spring.
— Shoutout to my Ethiopian bros and sis — we Liberians chose Staten Island with the Sri Lankans, haha!
Ok, anyway — that’s why we’re breaking it all down in this quick video, with straight-up, on-the-go solarpunk flavor.
This topic hits hard on our Community-Driven Governance pillar, because if we’re building a future for the people, the people gotta know how the system works.
If you get confused or have a better way of explaining any of this, please send a message, shoot it in the chat — don’t be bashful, guys. Let’s put our heads together and teach each other :).
Keep it punk. Buy less.
—✌🏾lavala
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