If you’re wearing a zipper right now, there’s a very good chance it was manufactured by the Japanese company called Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushikigaisha, or YKK.

“In Japan, the word is ‘fasteners,’” said journalist Joshua Hunt. “And that refers to anything from the sort of zipper that you might find on a pair of jeans to the type of fasteners that none of us ever see because they're holding together bits of upholstery inside of a car seat.”

The company was founded in 1934, and Hunt wrote in Bloomberg Businessweek about its rise to become a giant in the global trade system. “Thirty, forty years into the story of the company, the founder was setting up all these sort of outposts all around the world,” said Hunt. “Which now amount to 112 separate branches in 70 different countries that are all under the umbrella of this one.”

Yet the new tariff regime under the Trump administration could change all that. “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal spoke with Hunt about his reporting; to listen to the interview, use the media player above.