ICE influencers, a world-record trade surplus, and the moon goes nuclear

NPR. This is The Indicator From Planet Money, I'm Waelin Wong. I'm Darien Woods, and we are joined today by Planet Money's Sarah Gonzalez. Sarah, it has been too long. It always feels too long. Sarah, you truly could not have picked a more beautiful day to come into the indicator orbit because today is Indicator of the Week. This is the Day of the Week when we talk about the most interesting numbers from the news. On today's episode, we're talking about. The Trump administration's ice recruitment strategy. China's world record-beating trade surplus. And pack your dip and dots. We're going back to the moon. I'll bring some crackers for the cheese. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry, but we do also like to get into other kinds of stories, stories about policing, or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully, make you see the world a new. Radio Lab adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcasts. There's a lot going on right now. Mounting, economic, inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's on the media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here? Maybe had a head them off at the past? That's on the media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. Indigators of the week, Sarah, you're first. All right. So my indicator of the week is $100 million. That is how much the Trump administration has set aside to spend on a one-year, so-called wartime recruitment strategy, to hire more immigration and customs enforcement workers. So this is all according to a document that the Washington Post got a hold of. It says that immigration officials plan to flood the market with millions of dollars worth of social media ads and to pay pro-ice social media influencers and other online creators to normalize and humanize careers at ICE through storytelling and lived experiences. That's, quote. Well, they're already making these, right? I mean, I've seen footage of videographers trailing after agents, and then they put together these slick videos and post them on social media. So I think it's some of it's already happening, right? The Washington Post couldn't confirm whether the strategy has been implemented or how much of the strategy, but it certainly seems to coincide with ads and ad campaigns and social media content that we're seeing online. Apparently, at least $8 million of the $100 million is supposed to be spent on this influencer program. They say that they are particularly interested in veterans, former agents, and pro-ice creators. And like, the idea behind recruiting influencers, according to this document, is to build trust through authentic peer-to-peer messaging. So they want to reach people with like a big Gen Z and millennial following and apparently also people who are tactical lifestyle enthusiasts. I mean, this is the kind of language, you know, like build trust through authentic peer-to-peer messaging. This is language that I'm used to hearing from the advertising industry when they talk about working with influencers, but how unusual is it for the government to be recruiting influencers in this way? I mean, this is where you reach people these days, right? And they do partner with like marketing organizations. So the Biden administration also did recruit influencers for its own public health campaign around the COVID-19 vaccine. So I remember one influencer did like a Q&A with Dr. Anthony Fauci, remember that guy? Other influencers were just kind of encouraging people to get vaccinated. All right. So this may be the future of marketing, even for the government. Future and present, I would say. And so the money for this comes from all the new ice cash that Congress approved last year as part of the one big, beautiful bill, right? Yeah, the budget just for ISIS enforcement and deportation activities alone tripled this summer. It's almost $30 billion now. And so that money can go towards everything from like modernizing deportation planes to hiring more ICE officers and staff. Now, according to the post, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson did not dispute their reporting and actually said that she was thrilled to see the outlet highlighting their quote, wildly successful ICE recruitment campaign. Now, a little update on where ICE is in their recruitment efforts earlier this month. The Department of Homeland Security said that their hiring push has shattered expectations that they've hired 12,000 officers and agents in just about four months. So there used to be about 10,000 ICE workers and there's now over 22,000 of them. And their priority is really doing this quickly. Okay. Thank you, Sarah, for that update. Now, Darian, what do you have? My indicator is $1.2 trillion. That's the size of China's trade surplus last year. It's the largest trade surplus any country anywhere in the world has ever had. Well, this is the exported more than the imported a lot more. A lot more. Yes, there has been big growth in exports to Europe, Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia. These countries are seeing container load upon container load of inexpensive Chinese goods come through their ports. So I guess whether you see this as a good or a bad development depends on whether you're buying those cheap laptop stands and toasters or whether you're making them. Yeah, like if you're competing against them. So because of the ways that this can hurt other countries, manufacturers, we are seeing countries like Mexico push back to protect its own industries. Mexico put in place sweeping new tariffs on countries like China over the new year, most topped out at 35%. Guess everyone's doing the tariff thing now. Even though Egon 101 says that trade overall makes both countries richer, but the benefits of cheaper goods does tend to be spread out among many consumers and the costs, you know, when that undercut local producers, that can be quite concentrated. I mean, that is the rub for the politicians, right? That's the problem. Yeah, you'll hear this wave of Chinese goods being called overcapacity. And overcapacity is really in the eye of the beholder. Does this mean the Chinese government subsidizing its manufacturing to dump goods all around the world and hollow out their manufacturing sectors? Or is it a gift to the globe? Is it giving us cheap solar panels, electric vehicles and smartphones if only we would accept them? Does this say about the US tariffs? It doesn't sound like it's slowing down Chinese exports. Yeah. So China's surplus to the US did shrink last year. But what we're seeing is that China has redirected a lot of the goods that would have gone to the US to other regions and then more. In many cases, the goods are selling for cheaper than what they'd go for in the US. There's always going to be a buyer. Yep. So next shopping trip. I don't know. Head to Vietnam. Or to the moon, which is how much can I, how much can I buy a little booboo there for? Liberal economics work differently on the moon because of the gravity thing, and I'll explain that to you later. OK. So my indicator is 2030. That is the year that a lunar surface reactor will be developed for deployment to the moon and its orbit. So you're talking a nuclear reactor. Yes. This is energy. We want energy on the moon. Why the moon are we moving to the moon? Yeah. Pack your bags. This reactor is part of NASA's project Artemis. This is NASA's venture to explore the moon and establish a long-term human presence there. Basically, you know, like trying to figure out how to eventually live apart from Earth someday, you know, on the moon, maybe even to Mars. OK. When's this nuclear power going to be set up? It's unclear, but NASA, along with the Department of Energy, announced a renewed commitment to develop a planetary power source this week. It follows an executive order late last year from President Trump. That order called for a permanent lunar surface base by 2030, and at least one reactor on the moon that same year. So it's adding that this order was preceded by another order to quote usher in a nuclear renaissance. OK. And so how much power might get generated? Well, they're planning on building a reactor that can juice up to 40 kilowatts of electricity that could power 30 households for 10 years. The Department of Energy says it can theoretically be scaled up. It can also work quite literally where the sudden don't shine. So that's consistent power, no matter what. What a bright future you guys. 30 households. Maybe they could come around for potluck, dinner. I will happily watch those 30 households. The 10 reality show from here on Earth. The real housewives of the moon. That's what's actually going to happen, Wailing. You hit the nail on the head. That's for sure the next step. It's going to be astronauts throwing mimosas in each other's faces. But unable to connect, because it's just going to like flow out. Exactly. All right, well, Sarah, Darian, thank you and see you on Earth sometime in the future. Looking forward to it. Thanks, guys. This episode was produced by Angel Carreras, an engineer by Maggie Luthar. It was fact-checked by Vito Emmanuel. Julia Richie edited this episode, Kate Concanon edited the show, and the indicators for production of NPR.