Economists almost universally agree that the tariffs imposed by President Trump will cost the average American household hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars every year in higher goods costs.

Why it matters: It's not yet clear those households can, or will, pay it.

The big picture: In a matter of days, we're all going to learn how much pricing power is left in U.S. supply chains — from the wholesalers, to the distributors, all the way through to retail.

• Whether the extra 25% levy on avocados at the Mexican border turns into a 25% hike on your Super Bowl guacamole will depend on a range of factors and business decisions.

State of play: At every step of the process, everyone who touches that avocado (or any other tariffed good) will ask themselves two questions:

• Can my profit margins absorb — or survive — any of this price increase?
• Will customers accept any of that price increase, or just stop buying?

The intrigue: Now ask those same questions at tens of thousands of businesses, thousands of times every day, selling everything from TVs to tires and avocados to amplifiers.

By the numbers: There are short-term and long-term costs at play.

• As Trump's tariffs first hit, the Tax Foundation estimates they will be an effective tax of more than $830 per U.S. household this year.
• Next year, the Tax Policy Center says, the full impact of the tariffs will reduce consumers' average after-tax income by 1%.
• In the long term, economies re-arrange themselves to account for the new order, and central banks react to the inflationary pressures. The Budget Lab at Yale University forecasts even after all that, the average U.S. household will still lose about $1,000 of purchasing power a year.
• Over the medium to long term, the Budget Lab estimated the biggest persistent price increases would be in natural gas (think heating and cooking), and the broad category of "computer, electronic and optical" (cell phones, among other things).

It may not take that long, either — as the well-known free trade expert Douglas Irwin posted on Sunday, his own home heating fuel provider immediately raised their prices to match the tariff, before it had even gone into effect.

The bottom line: "The big worry for markets is that President Trump may be willing to let the U.S. take considerable economic pain in an attempt to achieve his stated goals of reducing trade deficits, bringing jobs to the U.S., and enhancing border security," BMO Wealth Management chief investment officer Yung-Yu Ma wrote Monday.

Go deeper: Trade war begins, as Trump leaves the world guessing

• Meta's CTO said 2025 is crucial for Metaverse's success or failure in a leaked memo seen by BI.
• Andrew Bosworth said Meta needs to "drive sales, retention, and engagement" for mixed reality.
• He added Reality Labs plans to launch "half a dozen" more AI-powered wearable products.

Meta's chief technology officer thinks 2025 could be a make-or-break year for its metaverse bets, Business Insider has learned.

Andrew "Boz" Bosworth told staff this year is "most critical" to prove the metaverse is either a visionary feat or a "legendary misadventure," according to an internal memo from November, viewed by BI.

In a post titled "2025: The Year of Greatness," shared on Meta's internal forum Workplace, Bosworth said its Reality Labs division plans to launch half a dozen more AI-powered wearable devices — but did not specify a timeline or provide further details.

"We need to drive sales, retention, and engagement across the board but especially in MR [mixed reality]," he wrote. "And Horizon Worlds on mobile absolutely has to break out for our long-term plans to have a chance. If you don't feel the weight of history on you, then you aren't paying attention."

He added, "This year likely determines whether this entire effort will go down as the work of visionaries or a legendary misadventure."

Bosworth also referred to Steven Levy's book, "Insanely Great," which details how the Macintosh computer was created by small teams of one to three people. Later in the memo, Bosworth added that he has seen smaller teams "achieve better results than our more generously funded teams."

Last week, the Meta CTO announced a series of reorgs in its Reality Labs division, which is responsible for its augmented and virtual reality products. As part of the changes, the unit that Reality Labs COO Dan Reed previously led will now be run by Meta COO Javier Olivan.

Meta also reshuffled the reporting lines of other Reality Labs executives, who now report to other key figures in Meta's core business, signaling the division has become a bigger priority for the company.

Last week, Meta's Reality Labs unit reported a record $1.08 billion in revenue in its fourth-quarter earnings. However, the mixed reality-focused division also recorded its biggest-ever quarterly operating loss of $4.97 billion. The division has racked up losses of about $60 billion since 2020.

Meta didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI, made outside normal working hours.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke about the company's smart glasses in an all-hands meeting last week, in which he told employees to "buckle up" for an "intense year."

The company sold more than a million units of its AI-powered smart glasses in 2024, which Zuckerberg said was a "great start" but that it is "not going to move the needle and the business in a core way."

He added that Meta's trajectory this year will give it a good indication of whether smart glasses will become a "long-term grind" and whether, in the near term, AI glasses will become a "really prominent computing platform."

Read the full memo Bosworth sent to employees:

2025: The Year of Greatness

Next year is going to be the most critical year in my 8 years at Reality Labs. We have the best portfolio of products we've ever had in market and are pushing our advantage by launching half a dozen more AI powered wearables. We need to drive sales, retention, and engagement across the board but especially in MR. And Horizon Worlds on mobile absolutely has to break out for our long term plans to have a chance. If you don't feel the weight of history on you then you aren't paying attention. This year likely determines whether this entire effort will go down as the work of visionaries or a legendary misadventure.

I've been re-reading "Insanely Great," Steven Levy's history of the Macintosh computer. If you haven't read it the book chronicles the incredible efforts of individuals working in teams of 1-3 to build a device that more than any other marked the consumer era of personal computing. What I find most fascinating about it is the way that even people who left the program on bad terms (it was not particularly well managed) speak about the work they did there with an immense sense of pride. There was a widespread cultural expectation, set by none other than a young Steve Jobs, that the work needed to be "insanely great."

On paper 2024 was our most successful year to date but we aren't sitting around celebrating because know it isn't enough. We haven't actually made a dent in the world yet. The prize for good work is the opportunity to do great work.

Greatness is our opportunity. We live in an incredible time of technological achievement and have placed ourselves at the center of it with our investments. There is a very good chance most of us will never get a chance like this again.

Greatness is a choice. Many people have ben at the precipice of opportunity and failed to achieve. For the most part they failed to even challenge themselves.

You should be doing the best work of your career right now. You should be pushing yourself to grow where needed and doubling down on your strengths. When you look back on this time I want you to feel like you did everything in your power to make the most of it.

You don't need big teams to do great work. In fact, it may make it harder. One trend I've observed the last couple of years is that our smaller teams often go faster and achieve better results than our more generously funded teams. Not only that, they are much happier! In small teams there is no risk of falling into bad habits like design by committee. You should be so focused on results that being in a bunch of docs or meetings is too frustrating to bear.

The path is clear. You don't need to come up with a bunch of new ideas to do this great work. Most people in the organization just need to execute on the work laid out before them to succeed. It is about operational excellence. It is about master craftsmanship. It is about filling our products with "Give A Damn". This is about having pride in our work.

I will close with an Arnold Glasow quote: "Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire." 2025 is the year. Let's be on fire.

Are you a Meta employee? Got insight to share? Contact the reporter Jyoti Mann via Signal at jyotimann.11 or email at [email protected]. Reach out from a nonwork device.

• The US, UK, and EU have imposed a flurry of sanctions on Moscow's "shadow fleet."
• The fleet comprises often aging, uninsured ships that aim to evade sanctions on Russian energy exports.
• Some countries have begun delisting sanctioned Russian shadow tankers.

Russia's "shadow fleet" is running out of options to export oil.

The US, UK, and EU have all levied heavy sanctions on Russian shadow fleet vessels in recent months as part of an effort to hamper Russian oil exports and hinder the country's ability to fund its invasion of Ukraine.

In January, the US Treasury announced sweeping sanctions on 183 Russian-controlled and shadow fleet ships — the latter of which are often aging, uninsured vessels Moscow uses to evade international sanctions. The EU and the UK have together sanctioned more than 140 such vessels.

Russia's shadow fleet has used a number of different tactics to try to evade these sanctions and deliver Russian crude oil while obscuring its source, including turning off automatic identification systems (AIS), providing false positions, and carrying out ship-to-ship transfers.

However, the fleet, which has an estimated 1,300 ships, is now facing another problem — a growing number of registries delisting sanctioned vessels. Between Barbados and Panama alone, more than 100 sanctioned Russian ships are being delisted.

"These ships lose their legal right to operate under those jurisdictions, making them less likely to access international ports or insurance services," Petras Katinas, an energy analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, told Business Insider.

To enter a port, vessels typically need a valid flag issued by a country's maritime authority, insurance coverage, and a classification society verification, which verifies safety standards.

With more registries cutting ties, Russian shadow tankers are forced to change flags frequently, a practice known as "flag hopping," according to Ami Daniel, CEO of maritime AI firm Windward.

Russia has long used this tactic to evade the G7's $60-per-barrel price cap on its oil, which has been in place since December 2022, with Panama, Liberia, the Marshall Islands, and Malta among the favored flags used by the shadow fleet's vessels.

"This is a Whack-a-Mole game," Daniel said. Russia's shadow fleet vessels will "go to whatever random flag will take them."

Some of the Russian ships previously registered in Barbados have already switched flags to Tanzania and São Tomé and Príncipe to evade sanctions, according to the Equasis marine database.

Nevertheless, the latest sanctions have proven "very effective" in pushing shadow fleet vessels out of commercial operations, Benjamin Hilgenstock, a senior economist at the Kyiv School of Economics, said.

"The buyers of the oil, banks involved in the transactions, and port authorities fear being hit by sanctions themselves if they interact with listed tankers or their cargo," he told BI.

Financial impact

The crackdown on Russia's shadow fleet could have serious financial consequences for Moscow.

Oil exports, alongside gas, are one of the Kremlin's most important sources of cash. Oil and gas revenues accounted for around 30% of Russia's federal budget in 2024, Alexander Novak, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, wrote in Energy Policy last week.

And Western sanctions already appear to be having an effect.

The Kyiv School of Economics said Russian oil export revenues dropped by $1.1 billion to $14.6 billion in November amid US, UK, and EU countermeasures.

"The unified 'triple pressure' strategy raises the risks and costs of violations, prevents sanctions evasion, and reinforces accountability for shipowners and third countries," it said.

Reuters reported last week that sanctions have also triggered a surge in shipping costs, prompting China and India — two of the largest importers of Russian crude — to suspend March purchases of Russian oil.

While those countries "continue to import substantial amounts of Russian oil and raise revenue for the Kremlin, they are also reacting to the stick of the US secondary sanctions," said Gonzalo Saiz Erausquin, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute's Centre for Finance and Security.

Analysts say the West must now expand the list of sanctioned shadow fleet ships to effectively hit Russia's oil revenues, as Moscow will likely be able to mitigate short-term impacts with its schemes to evade such measures.

Erausquin said Western countries should also look to crack down on third-country intermediaries, brokers, and fraudulent registries that allow substantial amounts of Russian crude to be imported.

"We have to make sure that we're making life harder for Russia's shadow fleet," Erausquin said.

• Many fan-favorite stars, including Beyoncé, Chappell Roan, and Sabrina Carpenter, were Grammys winners.
• Kendrick Lamar took home 5 awards for "Not Like Us," his diss track about Drake.
• Lamar's awards amplify Drake's defeat after their intense rap beef.

Fans are calling Sunday's Grammys one of the best nights for the awards show in years after Beyoncé, Chappell Roan, and Kendrick Lamar won big.

But Lamar's success made Drake, the rapper's biggest rival, the event's biggest loser.

After more than a decade of being snubbed for the top award, Beyoncé finally won the prestigious album of the year for "Cowboy Carter." Rising stars Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Doechii, and CharliXCX dazzled with performances of their most popular tracks and each took at least one award.

There was some disagreement about Billie Eilish going home empty-handed, but many fans on social media seemed to think there were no major snubs this year — something of a rarity for an awards show.

Lamar, who had a resurgence in 2024 after beating Drake in a diss track battle and dropping a chart-topping album "GNX," also took home five awards for "Not Like Us," his most popular diss track about Drake. Lamar won the most awards for any artist on Sunday and won in the top categories: song of the year and record of the year.

Although Drake skipped the Grammys this year and was not nominated for any awards against Lamar, the song's success is a further embarrassment for Drake.

The Recording Academy gave five awards to a song that accuses Drake of pedophilic behavior and also played the song during the event, where Beyoncé and Taylor Swift can be seen dancing along.

Drake denied the pedophile allegation in his response song "The Heart Part 6," released in May 2024.

In November 2024, Drake tried to sue Universal Music Group, the record company that owns Lamar's and Drake's labels, accusing it of using illicit methods to boost "Not Like Us." In January, he dropped another lawsuit against Universal that alleged defamation over the song's allegations.

UMG has denied Drake's allegations of boosting "Not Like Us" and of defamation.

Sunday's result is unsurprising because the Recording Academy has always embraced Lamar, who now has 22 Grammys, and famously snubbed Drake, who has only won five times from 55 nominations.

Drake has been critical of the Grammys in recent years, writing in an Instagram story in 2024: "All you incredible artists remember this show isn't the facts it's just the opinion of a group of people who's name are kept a secret 🤫😂 (literally you can google it). Congrats to anybody winning anything for hip hop but this show doesn't dictate shit in our world."

But "Not Like Us" continued success shows that Drake can't lawyer his way out of his rap beef defeat and win back favor with the public.

Drake's year of humiliation is not over. Lamar's next stop is the Super Bowl halftime show on February 9, and fans expect him to perform his diss tracks one last time as a final blow to Drake.