Kicker: Trading with Wakanda

NICK EICHER, HOST: Of course, you know about our ongoing disputes with global trading partners, but here’s one that’s a little surprising.

The U.S. government last week ended its free trade agreement with the nation of Wakanda.

I’m not making this up. If you went by the tariff tracker on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, as of last Wednesday, it listed Wakanda among the countries with whom we have a free-trade agreement. 

Maybe you’re not familiar with Wakanda, but surely you’ve heard of its most famous citizen—the Marvel superhero Black Panther.

AUDIO: We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.

Someone at the Department of Agriculture added the fictional land of Wakanda to the tariff tracker site during testing. But nobody took it down, until a journalist noticed it.

It’s gone now.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

(Photo/Marvel, Walt Disney Studios)

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