NPR.

This is the indicator from Planet Money.

I'm Darym Woods.

And I'm Waylon Wong.

Kristen Carter is the owner of the busy Beaver button company in Chicago.

She makes pinback buttons,

you know, the kind that you might put on your backpack or your jean jacket. And if you wanted to pick a button-friendly slogan to describe the company, it could be made in the USA. Like almost everything

is within 100 miles. You know, like we try to be as local as possible for everything.

So, for example, Busy Beaver gets its steel from Indiana. That steel is then sent to Chicago,

where it's coated with tin. It helps stop corrosion and rusting. Oh, okay. Is that why you choose it

for your buttons? Yeah, that's why everyone uses it. That's the advantage of tin plating.

Button makers have been using tin plate for over a century.

Kristen also curates the Button Museum at Chicago, and she's got a tinplate button in her collection from 1892.

That's actually four years before the patent was even issued for this kind of button.

Kristen, you got to blow this thing wide open. I know. I know. It's like it's really going to shake

the earth when people learn about this. And here's another earth-shaking fact about this button.

It owes its existence to a trade policy called the McKinley tariff. The Timplate industry was a major

beneficiary of that tariff. Now, President Trump is kind of obsessed with William McKinley

and his stance on trade. Trump has praised McKinley for being, quote, very strong on protecting

our assets. And as we saw this week, one of Trump's first big economic

moves was putting or threatening to put on tariffs for Mexico, Canada, and China. When it comes to

Trump's tariff role model, William McKinley, the American tinplate industry is often used as an example

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