• Wells Fargo said in a report that President Donald Trump's tariffs won't bring manufacturing back.
• High labor costs and a lack of workers would make building more factories an "uphill battle."
• US manufacturing needs $2.9 trillion in investment to reach 1979 employment levels.

President Donald Trump's push to revive American manufacturing through tariffs may face some hurdles.

Despite some high-profile commitments, including Nvidia's plans for a US-based supercomputer plant and Apple's pledge to invest $500 billion domestically, a new report from Wells Fargo economists predicts that bringing back offshored manufacturing jobs will be an "uphill battle."

"An aim of tariffs is to spur a durable rebound in US manufacturing employment," Wells Fargo analysts wrote in the report. "However, a meaningful increase in factory jobs does not appear likely in the foreseeable future, in our view."

The report attributes the potentially low factory job growth to high labor costs, a lack of suitable workers to fill vacant positions, and a subdued population growth from lower fertility rates and slower immigration.

"Higher prices and policy uncertainty may weigh on firms' ability and willingness to expand payrolls," the analysts added.

The tariffs are part of Trump's broader economic agenda to revive American manufacturing as a pathway toward middle-class prosperity. The tariffs are meant to hike the costs of imports to incentivize companies to make goods domestically.

"Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country," Trump said while announcing tariffs on April 2. "And ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers."

Some tariffs imposed on April 2 have been temporarily paused or greatly reduced, including tariffs on China. The 10% across-the-board tariff remains, as do some specific tariffs on Mexico and Canada, plus 30% in duties on China. Duties at their current level are still the highest they have been since the 1940s.

"In order for manufacturing employment to return to its historic peak, we estimate at a minimum $2.9 trillion in net new capital investment is required," Wells Fargo analysts wrote. "Assuming businesses are willing and able to invest such ample sums, questions over staffing remain."

The Wall Street bank says that US manufacturing employment currently stands at 12.8 million, down from its 1979 peak of 19.5 million. To get back to that mark, the US would need to add roughly 6.7 million jobs. Wells Fargo added that the figure is nearly the same as the entire pool of unemployed Americans, which in April was 7.2 million, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"Population aging, negative perceptions, and skill mismatches also underpin workforce concerns," Wells Fargo analysts wrote. "New jobs will require different skills than those previously lost."

In 2024, Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC said it delayed the opening of its Arizona chip factory due to a shortage of skilled workers. A report released in April 2024 by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute also found that nearly half of the 3.8 million new manufacturing jobs anticipated by 2033 could remain unfilled due to skill gaps and other population factors.

"Tariffs must be high enough to make the cost of domestic production competitive in the US market, and they also must be kept in place long enough for producers to bring on additional workers and expand capacity," the report concluded. "If the economic or political costs are deemed too high, the current administration could quickly dial-back prevailing duties further."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

• Airbnb's CEO said he's heard from founders facing a challenging fundraising landscape amid economic uncertainty.
• Brian Chesky said that while a stable economy is needed, there's a "silver lining" to building a business in tough times.
• The Airbnb cofounder said on Michelle Obama's podcast that a tough economy bakes "discipline" into your company culture.

Brian Chesky is no stranger to starting a business in tough economic times.

Chesky cofounded Airbnb in 2007 and built the business during the 2008 financial crisis. In a recent podcast conversation with Michelle Obama and her brother, Craig Robinson, Chesky said it was challenging to get the business off the ground during a recession, even with some of the advantages and connects he and his founders had that other entrepreneurs might not have.

However, he said there was one "silver lining" to growing the business during tough times, which might resonate with founders facing today's economic uncertainty.

"A lot of great companies have been started in a recession," he said in a Wednesday episode of "IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson."

"And the one, I don't want to say it's a good thing, but what it does is it teaches you a certain type of discipline," he said. "A tough economy teaches you a discipline that gets institutionalized into your culture."

By comparison, a strong economy might give founders more cushioning to "perpetuate bad strategies and be a little less disciplined," Chesky said.

"I think the good news is a lot of great entrepreneurs are incredibly resourceful, and they will find a way to work," the Airbnb cofounder said. "But we absolutely need like a very stable economy."

Chesky said that entrepreneurs he's spoken with recently told him "a lot of fundraising, for all intents and purposes, was kind of on hold."

"A lot of limited partners and investors are just like hunkering down. And what we know about investors, they don't like uncertainty," he said.

He believes investors will "sit this one out until things stabilize."

"And if they don't stabilize, we're going to be in for a very prolonged kind of dry spell for fundraising," he said. "If you did not go to a prestigious school, if you weren't, like, purely a team of technical engineers, if you're not trying to create an AI company, you're just trying to create a business, that will be more difficult."

Airbnb isn't the only successful business to emerge from the Great Recession. Companies like Uber, WhatsApp, Venmo, and Square also started around the time of the 2008 financial crisis.

"It's always a great time to start a business — and some of the most successful businesses are started during recessions," certified financial planner Cary Carbonaro previously told BI. "Adversity is the mother of invention."

The days of revenge travel are over. After years of being cooped up at home, travelers rushed into the world with a vengeance, sparking a major travel boom from 2022 to 2024. But years of rising prices and a slew of new tariff threats have cast uncertainty over the economy.

A summer vacation survey by Bankrate in March found that only 53% of Americans said they planned to take a vacation this summer — about the same as last year but a drop from 2023, when 63% planned to take a vacation. Of those forgoing travel this year, 65% cited cost as the main factor; and of those opting to travel, almost a third said they plan to take on debt to do so.

But not everyone feels equally squeezed. A Deloitte survey conducted in early April found that even after President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff announcement a few days earlier, estimated travel budgets for the summer on average remained 13% above similar estimates for last summer. Through its surveys over the last few years, Deloitte has identified a trend: High-income Americans have made up an increasing share of those planning summer travel. Nearly half of respondents who said they planned to travel this summer made over $100,000, up from 35% in 2023.

To cater to the growing share of high spenders, the luxury segment of the travel industry is outpacing every other segment. As the middle class cuts back on travel spending, many high-earners are still going all out for their summer vacation.

Over the past year, more and more middle-income Americans have decided to stay home or pivot their plans to save money. Las Vegas, which largely caters to middle-class travelers, has seen a major drop-off. Mark Wayman, the owner of an executive recruiter company with knowledge of the Las Vegas market, says bookings in Sin City this year through September are "the worst I've ever seen."

Some of the anxiety is new, with uncertainty over how tariffs might affect prices and the broader economy. But even before then was the compounding effect of years of price increases. Multiple travelers told me that they have noticed that hotels and flights now include fewer services bundled into their price tags. Southwest Airlines, for instance, recently made headlines in March by changing its long-standing policy of allowing flyers two free checked bags. As a result, people are feeling like their dollar can't go as far.

Reycie Gallardo, a 39-year-old IT project manager in Los Angeles, says that these kinds of changes really shrink the scope of what you can do when you travel. A few years ago, he and his wife might have taken a long weekend as an opportunity to fly to a national park and stay for a few days. Now they'll drive somewhere close, like Santa Barbara or San Diego, and not even stay the night.

Makarand Mody, an associate professor of hospitality marketing at the Boston University School of Hospitality Administration, has noticed others making the same decision. Nearly a quarter of survey respondents in April told Deloitte that high prices had prompted them to drive rather than fly in the past year. Deloitte also found that lower-income travelers have driven up demand for more affordable accommodations in the past few years, including RVs, bed & breakfasts, and camping.

Talon Windwalker, a 56-year-old grief counselor in Janesville, Wisconsin, has been making a similar compromise. When planning his trip to South Carolina, the travel enthusiast's 50th state to visit, earlier this year, driving was a clear way to save on costs. But "you make a lot of sacrifices" in the tradeoff, Windwalker says. Driving requires much more planning, and the long days at the wheel can be difficult. "I was gone for a week, but four days of those were just driving to get there and back," he says.

Home-swap platforms like HomeExchange and Kindred have also been seeing huge swells in popularity. Advertised as more affordable, community-oriented alternatives to hotels or short-term rentals, these platforms help members arrange stays at each other's homes. HomeExchange says it facilitated 43% more house swaps in 2024 than in 2023 and finalized 47% more exchanges in January 2025 than the same time last year. Kindred, which launched in 2021, a factor that could account for some of its growth, reported more than 500% more nights swapped in 2024 compared with 2023.

And yet, companies like airlines, hotels, and home rentals are still seeing "some pretty healthy bottom lines," Mody says.

For one, because prices have been steadily rising, companies can still grow their revenue even if demand falters. But also, wealthy people are getting wealthier while maintaining a strong appetite for travel, he says. A recent analysis from Moody's estimated that the top 10% of households had come to account for half of all consumer spending. As high-income Americans travel and spend more, it can offset pullbacks by lower- and middle-income segments of the population that are seeing prices stretch too high for comfort.

This is evident in the booming luxury travel market. The American Hotel & Lodging Association's latest report said the luxury category of accommodations experienced the fastest rate of growth in terms of new construction in 2024. Bram Gallagher, the director of economics and forecasting at AirDNA, an analytics firm that tracks the short-term-rental market, says that demand for stays priced over $1,000 a night has more than doubled since 2019, and bookings in the $1,000 to $1,499 range were up nearly 15% year-over-year in 2024.

Not only is demand for luxury accommodations going up, but prices are too. "We're actually increasing divergence between the bottom and the top of the short-term rental market," Gallagher says. AirDNA data shows that more expensive listings are increasing in price faster than less expensive listings. From February 2024 to February 2025, the average price of "luxury" listings (the most expensive 20% of all listings) increased by more than 5%, whereas the price of "budget" listings (the least expensive 20%) fell by about half a percentage point. Analyses have found that recent growth in the short-term rental market has largely been driven by luxury listings, adds Gallagher.

Roy Madhok, a senior vice president of revenue and distribution at Highgate, a real estate investment and hospitality management company, says that while travel in the budget and middle range is tapering, there's no sign yet that the same applies to luxury travel. As far as he can tell, travel for the highest income groups isn't slowing down.

The growing divergence between budget and luxury travel is leaving a massive middle ground of people who just can't afford how steep prices are getting. While that could mean many of us are left scraping together vacations from a combination of airline miles and staying with friends, there are signs this stark divide might not last forever. Some companies are already starting to tap into this market and win back cash-strapped middle-income travelers.

Madhok sees the adjustment as a kind of "re-normalization" for the travel industry. The recent travel boom wasn't necessarily normal or sustainable, he says. Now, demand seems to be finding a more stable balance. After years of steep price increases in Vegas restaurants, hotels, and shows, for instance, Wayman says that "prices are already becoming more affordable." And if demand continues to stay this low, prices will continue to drop in tandem.

Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics supports Madhok's theory of renormalization. According to the Bureau's consumer price index, the cost of airfare this year so far is about on par with airfare last year, which is in line with 2019 prices. Hotels are slightly cheaper this year than last year, though still higher than pre-2020. "After the vibrant rebound in post-pandemic demand, the US hotel industry has been navigating a period of stagnation," reads the recent AHLA report, "signaling a shift toward normalization in travel patterns."

Despite middle- and lower-income travelers feeling priced out of certain options, it's clear that they still have an appetite for travel, Mody says. "There's a really tremendous opportunity" for hotels and other brands to beef up their midscale offerings, he adds. Hotels have started realizing that "this is where people want to be from a price perspective," Mody says, and so creating options for people to travel within that more affordable range will be really important. Over the past year, companies like Hyatt, Hilton, and Marriott have announced plans for new hotel brands aimed at those middle-tier travelers.

Will that be enough to narrow the travel wealth disparity? Probably not, Mody says. After all, the travel economy is a reflection of the greater economy, and wealth inequality is still a growing concern. Despite ongoing economic uncertainties, the most luxurious travel experiences are still growing ever further out of reach for the majority of travelers.

Hannah Seo is a Korean-Canadian journalist based in Brooklyn, New York, who writes about health, climate, and social science.

• Urban Outfitters will be bringing in its fall products early this year.
• The company's CFO said this was to circumvent any future supply chain issues caused by Trump's tariffs.
• It could also "gently and sparingly" raise some product prices.

Urban Outfitters says fall is coming early this year.

The retail corporation announced in its earnings call on Wednesday that it would bring in fall products earlier, anticipating supply chain issues resulting from President Donald Trump's tariffs.

"While our teams continue to focus on increasing inventory turns, the uncertainty around tariffs means we are likely to bring in fall product a bit earlier," said the brand's finance chief, Melanie Marein-Efron.

Marein-Efron said to save costs, the brand shifted its mode of transporting stock from air to boat, a change which added about 30 days to delivery time.

The change in delivery method also comes with the risk of the fashion not being "as accurate as we would like it to be," she said.

"While there is some fashion risk of bringing product in early, we believe that it is prudent planning to bring in fall inventory, which is less sensitive to fashion, early, given the uncertain tariff outlook and any potential supply chain disruptions that could occur in the future," she said.

Representatives for Urban Outfitters did not respond to BI's query about whether customers would be able to shop fall fashion in-store earlier.

The company, which also owns retail brands Anthropologie, Free People, and Nuuly, sources its products mainly from India, Vietnam, and Turkey, Marein-Efron said.

Per Trump's announcement on April 2, 10% tariffs would be applied to goods from all countries entering the US. Goods from India, Vietnam would be subjected to additional 26% and 46% "reciprocal" tariffs, respectively, he said.

But on April 9, Trump announced a 90-day pause on the additional tariffs to allow room for trade negotiations.

She also said Urban Outfitters may consider "gently and sparingly raising some prices" to mitigate tariff effects.

The company reported a 10.7% revenue increase in the last quarter compared to the same period last year, with $1.33 billion in net sales.

Its shares were up more than 17% in after-hours trading on Wednesday.

• The EU is bringing in a fee of 2 euros ($2.26) for small packages from the likes of Temu and Shein.
• That's far lower than charges faced by US consumers following decisions by President Donald Trump.
• One commentator said the "pain will be suffered by lower-income households."

European consumers now face a far smaller charge on imports from Chinese retailers than shoppers in the US.

The European Union said on Tuesday it will start imposing a flat fee of 2 euros ($2.26) on parcels worth less than 150 euros imported into the bloc.

About 4.6 billion parcels entered the EU last year, with the vast majority coming from China.

Earlier this month President Donald Trump reduced the tariffs on Chinese imports from 120% to 54%, and maintained the flat fee of $100 per postal item for packages worth less than $800.

Europe's move is a blow to Chinese fast fashion giants such as Shein and Temu, but less so than ending the "de minimis" loophole that had allowed US import duties to be avoided.

Customs and Border Protection data shows that de minimis shipments account for more than 90% of all cargo entering the US.

Trump's move means consumers cannot expect a return to the golden era of cheap clothes and fast delivery.

Rebecca Homkes, a lecturer at London Business School, said: "Consumers will see higher prices and potentially longer shipping times as Shein and others move from direct shipping to sending volumes of goods in containers to the USA to be re-sent from their USA-based warehousing."

In the meantime, shoppers are likely to face fewer options, longer wait times, and fewer bargains.

"The pain will be suffered by lower-income households who relied on small parcels from abroad to stretch the family budget," said Gary C. Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "This will harm a lot of people who belong to Trump's political base. It makes no sense."

Raj Bhala, Brenneisen Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas, said the previous 120% level was "essentially prohibitive, so Temu and Shein couldn't ship into the US."

There was no "some chance of retailers not decoupling entirely, perhaps if these retailers can absorb some of that 54% tariff."

• Target reported sliding sales in its first quarter to May 3.
• CEO Brian Cornell said sales "fell short of our expectations" in a "highly challenging environment."
• Cornell also said post-tariff price increases would be a "last resort."

Target sales fell sharply in the three months to May 3, in a period marked by its decision to roll back DEI initiatives in January.

In an earnings call Wednesday, Target CEO Brian Cornell said the reaction to the DEI changes was one of several "additional headwinds" that had an adverse impact on sales, but the company could not quantify the amount.

Business Insider reported in March that the consumer analytics firm Numerator found customer foot traffic and market share had shifted from Target to Costco, particularly among shoppers who value DEI.

With respect to tariffs, Rick Gomez, Target's chief commercial officer, said on the earnings call that "adjusting prices" was one of several steps the company was taking to manage new import costs.

Comparable sales fell by 3.8%, store traffic was down 2.4%, and the average transaction size decreased by 1.4%.

Store-originated sales declined 5.7%, but were partially offset by a 4.7% growth in digital sales, led by a 36% surge in same-day delivery via Target Circle 360.

"We have many levers to use in mitigating the impact of tariffs and price is the very last resort," Cornell said.

Some alternatives to price hikes include sourcing more products from the US rather than China, negotiating with suppliers, adjusting the timing of deliveries, and eliminating products from the retail assortment, Gomez said.

Bullseye's Playground vow

Gomez also said that about half of the products Target sells are sourced in the US, and that it's on track to reduce its share of imports from China to 25% from the 60% share it imported in 2017.

In addition, he highlighted the low-price section at the front of the store, known as Bullseye's Playground.

"We have made a commitment to keep those at $1, $3, and $5," Gomez said. "It's important to the brand, and it's important to the guests."

Looking ahead, Target said it expects a low-single-digit decline in sales for the full year.

Stock fell more than 6% in premarket trading and was down 28% this year at Tuesday's close.

It also announced an "acceleration office" led by Michael Fiddelke, the company's former CFO and current COO, aimed at speeding up strategic execution and reversing recent declines.

Amy Tu, the chief legal and compliance officer, and Christina Henningon, the chief strategy and growth officer, are both leaving the company.

Net income rose by $62 million to $1.04 billion for the period.

• Walmart said last week that it planned to raise prices over tariffs, opening the door for other retailers to follow suit.
• On Tuesday, Home Depot said it didn't plan to increase prices and would instead rely on other "levers."
• Here's why the two companies are looking at the new import costs differently.

Retail giants Walmart and Home Depot are sending conflicting signals about post-tariff prices.

Walmart said during its earnings report last week that it would raise prices in the coming weeks and months — a move that also opened the door for other retailers to act.

But on Tuesday, Home Depot said it didn't plan to follow suit and would instead rely on other "levers" to manage expenses without broad-based price adjustments.

A closer look reveals four factors likely contributing to why the two companies are approaching pricing differently as they navigate new import costs.

Home Depot has more room to work with

Home Depot operates with wider profit margins than Walmart does, which means it has more flexibility to absorb any tariff-related costs.

Home Depot reported gross margins of 33.4% in the first quarter, compared to 27.5% in Walmart's US segment.

In other words, Walmart's markup is about six percentage points lower than Home Depot's, which makes sense given the different kinds of products each retailer specializes in. Higher-priced items like power tools and home appliances typically have higher profit margins than food and apparel.

Shoppers depend on Walmart for low-priced groceries

While Walmart is America's undisputed grocery king, Home Depot doesn't sell much food.

Sure, you can pick up a snack bar and a drink at the Home Depot checkout lane, but that's not the company's main category. By contrast, roughly 60% of Walmart's sales are from the food and beverage aisles.

This matters because many US shoppers have grown frustrated at inflation driving their grocery bills up, so Walmart has effectively ruled out, for now, using food price hikes to offset new costs for imported products.

"The first thing that goes through my mind is food inflation," Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said. "We've been through a number of years here where prices have gone up on food, and our customers have felt that, and they don't want any more food inflation."

For Home Depot, there's a bit more flexibility about where the company can shift costs, make some strategic pricing decisions, or make outright product cuts.

"We'll continue to use the portfolio approach that we've talked a lot about in the past, but we don't see broad-based price increases for our customers at all going forward," Home Depot's head of merchandising, Billy Bastek, said during Tuesday's call.

Walmart depends more on China

Home Depot says half of its inventory was sourced from within the US, and the company says no single country will represent more than 10% of its supply base by this time next year.

Walmart sources two-thirds of the products it sells in the US from US suppliers. A 2023 Reuters report found, though, that the company depends on China for about 60% of its imports.

While Walmart may have made tweaks to its supply chain since then, taken together, those figures would indicate Walmart has a higher exposure than Home Depot does to the 30% additional tariffs on Chinese imports, which Walmart CFO John David Rainey described as "too high."

Home Depot has more exclusive brand partnerships

Home Depot also said during the earnings call Tuesday that it plans to enlist its partner brands in its efforts to hold the line on prices for shoppers.

As avid DIYers or pro remodelers know, there are certain brands that are only available at a given national chain, so if Milwaukee Tool wants its products' sales to outperform Bosch's, it would behoove the brand to help Home Depot keep prices lower than chief retail rival Lowe's.

"It's a great opportunity for us to take share, and it's a great opportunity for our suppliers to take share as well," Bastek said.

Walmart, by contrast, is a mass retailer, which means it sells many of the same national brands that Target, Costco, or any other large company carries — so there's less incentive for, say, Energizer or Duracell to offer a better deal on batteries.

Companies have choices to make

Although President Donald Trump has said he would prefer that retailers simply "eat the tariffs," there aren't any set rules about how companies have to handle the new costs on imports.

Still, it would appear that Home Depot has a bit more flexibility than Walmart has to keep prices stable and still turn a profit.

As more companies report their earnings in the coming days and weeks, analysts will be sure to probe which path other retailers say they'll follow.

Do you work at Target or Walmart? Contact the reporter from a non-work device and email at [email protected]

In sparking his global trade war, Donald Trump seems to have maintained a glaring blind spot when it comes to protecting one of America's greatest trade advantages: the export of digital services.

Experts have warned that the consequences for Silicon Valley could be far-reaching.

In a report released Tuesday, an intelligence firm that tracks global trade risks, Allianz Trade, shared results of a survey of 4,500 firms worldwide, designed "to capture the impact of the escalation of trade tensions." Amid other key findings, the group warned that the US's fixation on the country's trillion-dollar goods deficit risks rocking "the fastest-growing segment of global trade," America's "invisible exports" of financial and digital services.

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• The world's largest hedge fund is crowdsourcing ideas about the new global economic order.
• Bridgewater and Global Citizen are launching a contest to predict the impact of protectionist policies.
• Five winners will receive $25,000 and a chance to work at Bridgewater, which manages roughly $92 billion.

Bridgewater is turning to the crowd for ideas on how to trade and position itself in a new global economic regime.

The world's largest hedge fund, known for its macro bets and its billionaire founder Ray Dalio, is hosting a competition with Australian nonprofit Global Citizen, which aims to end extreme poverty globally, titled "Forecasting the Future: A Modern Economics Challenge."

The contest is open to anyone who wants "to tackle one of the most significant global economic transformations of our time," according to a press release, and submit their analysis and forecast on what the protectionist policies of leaders around the world, led by tariffs proposed by President Donald Trump's administration, will do to the world economy.

Five winners will receive $25,000 and a chance at a job at the $92 billion hedge fund. The application opened on Tuesday.

"We are looking for the brightest minds across the world to contribute their understanding of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead and to join us as we navigate the future of this new world order," said Nir Bar Dea, the CEO of Bridgewater, which was founded in 1975 and calls itself a "a community of independent thinkers" in the release. The manager's polarizing workplace culture, termed "radical transparency" by its founder, has also set the firm apart over the decades.

One hundred applications will be selected from the initial pool, and then senior leaders at Bridgewater will decide on the five winners from that group.

The release says the five winners will be offered a job or internship opportunity with Bridgewater "pending successful completion of its interview requirements." A person close to the competition told Business Insider that the asset manager's "standard interview requirements" still apply, without specifying what those were.

The role offered to the winners is dependent on where the firm believes they would fit best within the organization, but even an internship can be a lucrative opportunity. A job posting for a 2026 investment internship states that the eight-week gig would pay $51,000 plus a signing bonus.

Bridgewater is not the only hedge fund to source talent through a contest. Systematic trading shop WorldQuant has an annual championship where students and academics from around the world submit math models predicting market moves. Last year, the prize pool was $400,000. $25 billion hedge fund Balyasny runs a stock-picking contest that serves as an early application pool for the firm's internship program.

The new economic world order

Bridgewater's top investment leaders have been public about how radical the Trump administration's economic policies have been and the substantial impact they will have on portfolios and institutions around the world. One of the firm's co-chief investment officers, Greg Jensen, wrote at the end of 2024 that the "previous global consensus around free trade and limited government intervention is hanging by a thread."

The firm has dubbed the new economic world order "modern mercantilism," a system the manager says relies more on state power than free trade.

Despite the world becoming less interconnected, the macro investment manager is still searching for international opportunities, especially in Asia. The firm's other co-chief investment officer, Karen Karniol-Tambour, recommended investing in China at the Milken conference earlier this month.

The firm's flagship fund, Pure Alpha, was up close to 9% through the first quarter of 2025, Reuters previously reported.

• Home Depot said it would maintain pricing levels despite the impact of tariffs.
• The CFO cited strong supplier ties and productivity for the move.
• The retailer posted a rise in first-quarter sales, while earnings dipped.

Home Depot said it had no plans to pass on the cost of tariffs to consumers despite their financial impact.

"We intend to generally maintain pricing across our portfolio," the home improvement retailer's head of merchandising, Billy Bastek, said during Tuesday's earnings call. "We don't see broad-based price increases for our customers at all going forward."

Executives said on the call that half of Home Depot's inventory was sourced from within the US, and that no single country will represent more than 10% of its supply base by this time next year.

"We have a number of different levers," Bastek added.

Speaking earlier to CNBC, CFO Richard McPhail cited the retailer's scale, close partnerships with suppliers, and supply chain productivity as key factors enabling it to absorb rising costs.

Bastek said on the earnings call that maintaining prices could help Home Depot (and its supplier brands) take market share from competitors that end up charging more.

The comments follow Walmart's announcement that it would raise prices in the coming weeks in response to the financial impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs.

Retail analysts told Business Insider that Walmart's move gave other retailers air cover to follow suit, if they so choose.

McPhail's comments come as Home Depot posted a 9.4% rise in first-quarter sales to $39.9 billion, although comparable sales fell by 0.6% due to the impact of foreign exchange rates.

Net earnings fell $200 million to $3.4 billion compared with the same period last year.

CEO Ted Decker said in a statement that the first-quarter results were in line with expectations.

"We feel great about our store readiness and product assortment as spring continues to break across the country," he said.

Home Depot maintained its full-year guidance of a 2.8% rise in total sales and an approximately 1% increase for comparable sales.

The stock rose 0.3% in afternoon trading and is down 2% this year.

Alex Mundo gets a little worked up at the idea of tariffs making the instruments at his music store more expensive, especially for beginners. "There's going to be a lot of kids now who aren't going to be able to get their stuff, aren't going to be able to become musicians," he says. "It's already becoming very cost-prohibitive as it is."

Mundo is a jack-of-all-trades within one trade: music. He spent more than a decade in sales and retail management, mainly at Sam Ash Music, and now works as a guitar technician at a retailer on Long Island, New York. He also moonlights as an audio engineer and plays in a band of his own. He's not optimistic about the impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs on the industry he's dedicated his life to. For families looking to get their kids into music, tariffs mean starter instruments may become tougher to afford. Advancing musicians may have a harder time accessing higher-quality instruments and gear as they progress. Sellers are feeling the pressure on their margins, too. Even professional and semiprofessional musicians aren't immune.

"If my gear is weak and lame, I don't get paid the checks that I need to get paid," says Mundo, who makes about one-quarter of his income from gigging. "I mean, musicians are broke. We need cheap things."

In music, like in many arenas, tariffs stand to make affordable things harder to come by — even the stuff that says "Made in the USA."

"If you walk to any music store, big box or mom-and-pop, right now and grab anything off the wall, it'll either say Taiwan or China on it, maybe Indonesia on some guitars," Mundo says. "Even when you get to the American-made stuff, I always have to ask, where are they getting the parts?"

The US music products industry is relatively small, worth about $20 billion in sales a year. Music may be a luxury, but it's profoundly impactful on our economy and collective psyche. The music industry generates billions of dollars in economic activity each year (see: Taylor Swift). It's one of America's greatest cultural exports. Music programs are a fixture in American schools. Music keeps us entertained and allows us to express ourselves and make connections. Not to be too soft, but it's one of those things that makes life a bit more worth living.

"There are geopolitical trade issues much bigger than clarinets out there in the world, I understand that," says John Mlynczak, the president and CEO of the National Association of Music Merchants. "But at the same time, music making is one of the most universally joyous, peaceful, uniting art forms since the dawn of time."

The biggest exporter of musical instruments and parts to the US is — surprise, surprise — China. It accounted for about $560 million in imports in 2024, followed by Indonesia and Japan at $166 million, with Mexico and Taiwan just behind. So when Trump initially put a 145% tariff on imports from China (though he's since temporarily reduced that to 30%) along with a blanket 10% tariff on imports globally, it caused quite a lot of heartburn in the industry. The worldwide nature of Trump's trade actions is particularly worrisome because, given the number of instruments and parts made abroad, music manufacturers and retailers have nowhere to hide.

Cullen Hendrix, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, recently crunched the numbers on instruments and tariffs. He found that orchestral strings (think violins and cellos) and brasswinds (trumpets and tubas) would be among the instruments hard hit, along with electronic keyboards and electric guitars and basses.

"While there will be escalating costs across a range of musical instruments, the most acute effects are going to be on the entry-level instruments, the ones that are the cheapest and therefore the most accessible to student musicians and, in particular, school music programs," he says. He worries about what it means for the future: "You don't get adult serious hobbyist musicians like myself, for instance, who spend thousands of dollars on musical equipment per year, if they never got an instrument in their hands in the first place."

About two-thirds of Americans in a 2022 YouGov survey said they had learned to play an instrument at some point in their lives. Most, of course, won't become the next John Mayer or Yo-Yo Ma or Slash, or play in Beyoncé's band, but learning to play an instrument is good for the brain. It helps with coordination, motor skills, and creativity. On the list of hobbies, it's a pretty healthy one.

The crux of Vermont Violins' business is instrument rentals, largely to students, and about 1,300 of the business' 1,500 loaners are imported from overseas. Its three primary manufacturers are in China, and all of them are having stock issues and raising their prices. Vermont Violins is limited on how much more it can charge customers in response — it doesn't want to price people out of playing, and its larger competitors have more wiggle room on margins. So to get ahead of prospective price increases, it just bought about $125,000 of instruments in one shot.

"We essentially did an entire year's worth of purchasing in one order," says Nate Webster, a shop manager at the company. It's borrowing from the future to survive in the present.

Stephanie Pensa helps run her dad's guitar shops, called Rudy's Music. The operation is fairly small: one location in Scarsdale, New York, and another in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan. She worries this is going to be the "last hoorah" of reasonable price points. While some manufacturers are trying to absorb import costs, increases are inevitably starting to come through. One Chinese manufacturer Pensa works with has paused sending guitars to the US altogether, so all that's available is the dwindling inventory that's already warehoused stateside. The other day, Pensa was shocked to see that a supplier had raised the price of power adapters she usually paid about $8 for to $18.50.

Customers have started to inquire about tariffs and price increases, and she's generally happy to explain what's going on so people don't think it's just "this small business that got greedy." She can tell customers are uneasy — Rudy's has seen an uptick in inquiries from people looking to sell their guitars, too. "There is a little bit of a feeling of, 'We should buy a lot right now and have it,' but then there is a little bit of a fear if people are sort of hanging onto their money a little more," she says. "It's a very iffy time."

The purported intent of Trump's tariffs is for manufacturing to move back to the US. It's a heavy lift in a lot of industries — nobody can really snap their fingers and build a factory overnight and then recruit people to work it. In music, there are some particularities that make the proposal perhaps even more daunting.

Making all the instruments stateside, with labor costs and revamped supply chains, would be so expensive that the price of lower-end items would skyrocket. That would hurt the entire pipeline, since many American companies manufacture their starter items abroad to keep the price points low before graduating people to more expensive, domestically made specialty equipment.

"A top-level brand wants that customer to want that top-level product, but you want to start and build brand loyalty," Mlynczak from NAMM says. "So you might have products that are the top level made in the US, but you might rely on products from other countries at that entry level."

Many of Fender's budget guitars and their parts are made in Indonesia and China. Some of the nicer options are assembled just over the border, in Mexico.

It's not easy to swap parts and materials for domestic options. Certain woods that produce certain sounds come from certain places. The same goes for rare earth metals, such as neodymium, which is used in microphones and primarily mined in China. Some instruments, culturally and historically, have belonged to specific countries. If you want a high-end string instrument, such as a violin or a cello, you'll lean toward a more "authentic" version from Italy or Germany. Or, for an electric guitar, you'll want something American. Instrument making is highly specialized, and it requires customized machinery and skillsets.

Vermont Violins has begun to invest in its own manufacturing capacity in recent years, ostensibly doing the very thing that Trump wants to happen. It makes about 100 instruments a year right now, and it's taken years of effort to get to that point. Kathy Reilly, who owns the store with her husband, estimates it took them three to five years to perfect the model — developing supply chains, sourcing the wood, purchasing equipment, and teaching people how to do the work. "You've got to practice. You've got to make all your mistakes," Reilly says.

Now, instead of investing more in its manufacturing operation, the tariffs have forced Vermont Violins to divert resources to manage the chaos of the moment. It's impossible to figure out what's being tariffed at any given time; handle currency fluctuations, partner relationships, and vendor price changes; and still try to build.

"We were trying to do what they wanted everybody to do," Reilly says. "But now we just got the bottom pulled out from under us."

Many instruments and equipment that are assembled in the US still have foreign parts, meaning their makers can't avoid tariffs, either.

The guitar effects pedals Electro-Harmonix is known for are generally assembled in New York City. Its three main components — the circuit board, chassis, and packing carton — are sourced from China and other countries in Asia. Mike Matthews, Electro-Harmonix's founder, who's been in the business since 1968, tells me some of his competitors assemble offshore, but it's a "huge risk" he won't take. "If there's a screw-up, and there are screw-ups, then you can get killed," he says.

Matthews hasn't had to raise prices yet — he's built up his stock in recent years, concerned about runaway inflation. But eventually, he'll have to act. "We will do the right, prudent thing at the right time," he says.

This isn't Matthews' first rodeo with tariffs in recent history. Electro-Harmonix also manufactures vacuum tubes — think old-school versions of microchips for equipment such as amps. It makes the equipment in Russia and had to hike prices after the US put a 35% tariff on imports from the country in 2022. "We're constantly battling with that," he says. While the vacuum tubes are still a significant part of his business, given how few competitors there are in the space, sales have fallen because of the "extreme, higher cost."

Much of the conversation around tariffs has focused on their impact on big industries, such as automotives and electronics, and the costs and merits of moving their manufacturing to the US. On the other end of the spectrum, the White House has framed tariffs as a way to wean Americans off cheap, disposable stuff. Consumers, in turn, are panic-buying cars and wondering whether they'll have to bid farewell to Shein and Temu. In the tariff landscape, musical instruments occupy a middle ground that often goes overlooked: not big enough to weigh heavily on policy (or the discourse), not small enough to be shrugged off as another trivial consumer indulgence.

Most instrument makers, even recognizable names, are relatively small firms. They don't have extensive logistics teams or armies of fancy lawyers to navigate a trade regime changing at this whipsaw pace. Nearly every manufacturer, retailer, and expert I spoke with for this story acknowledged that they're not entirely sure which tariffs are and aren't owed on any given day. NAMM provides resources for its members, but Mlynczak says he's still heard some say they just can't keep up.

The industry doesn't have the lobbying muscle behind it to make its case on getting more favorable trade arrangements. There's no Tim Cook of guitars to charm Trump into granting an exception for strings and tuning pegs. Gibson and Fender executives weren't sitting behind the president at his inauguration.

"The industry is not the automobile industry. It's not a giant industry. So most all the companies that make things in the musical instrument industry have to deal with the tariffs," Matthews says. "In general, when prices go up, total sales do come down."

Like most businesses and consumers, people in the instruments industry just want to know the drill on tariffs. The White House's version of "strategic uncertainty" is starting to feel pretty unstrategic at this point, and on the ground, it's making it very hard to strategize.

"Everyone looks at tariffs and says, 'Oh, well, if this costs more, that may cost more.' But we have to think about just supply chain disruption, small-business confusion, consumer confidence, all these little things that have hiccups," Mlynczak says.

Pensa from Rudy's says she's heard from sales reps at various companies that April — on the heels of "Liberation Day" — was terrible. "That was the height of, I think, the uncertainty," she says.

Instruments and equipment getting pricier or harder to get isn't the most important economic impact of tariffs. Obviously, someone not being able to afford groceries or a car to drive to and from work is different from a parent deciding not to get their kid a guitar for graduation. But music is woven into our cultural and social fabric. A trumpet or drum set is more than just an appliance.

"Musical instruments account for about one-tenth of 1% of the US trade deficit with China, but the cultural impact of musical instruments and the iconography around them is vast. If you think about famous musicians, many of them are kind of inseparable from the instrument they play," Hendrix of the Peterson Institute says.

We picture Slash with a Gibson Les Paul, Jimi Hendrix with his Fender Stratocaster, whether we know the exact names or brands of the instruments or not. But you never get a Slash or Jimi Hendrix if they don't get access to a guitar in the first place. The vast majority of people start out practicing with whatever they can get their hands on, and if tariffs make that harder, that's a challenge up and down the price point spectrum.

"It does kill the fire," Mundo says. "When something's completely out of your reach, how many times can you hear no before you're just like, screw this."

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

• Barry Diller said to give Trump's tariffs "a little good spirit," though he thinks "it's going to end in tears."
• "I like big gambles," he said. "Maybe you can pull it off. Maybe manufacturing can come back.
• The Budget Lab at Yale warns that tariffs won't offset the GOP's proposed tax cut bill.

Barry Diller thinks that President Donald Trump's tariffs should be allowed to come to pass.

"I think it's going to end in tears," the Hollywood mogul and IAC chairman said of Trump's tariff during Monday's episode of the "On with Kara Swisher" podcast.

"But you know what?" the 83-year-old billionaire continued. "It's a big gamble. I like big gambles. Maybe you can pull it off. Maybe manufacturing can come back. Maybe it can end taxes for people where you just simply get money from others."

"Don't be in this derangement syndrome, and let's see giving it a little good spirit rather than a violent negative spirit — and that's my attitude right now," Diller added.

Trump's broad-reaching tariffs have met challenges thus far, and he has paused some of the highest levies. Business leaders, even those who have openly supported him, have expressed concerns about their economic impacts, and stocks tumbled when the tariffs were announced.

The Budget Lab at Yale recently said in a report that the income reaped from tariffs won't come close to offsetting the Republicans' proposed tax cuts, which could pass given their majority in Congress and may cost the country $3.4 trillion over the next 9 years.

"If we account for the likelihood that these provisions would become permanent, at the end of 30 years the debt-to-GDP ratio would be over 180%, even assuming substantial revenue from tariffs," the non-partisan policy research group wrote. "For context, the only countries with a higher debt-to-GDP ratio currently are Japan and the Sudan."

In a separate report on May 12, the Budget Lab at Yale found that Trump's tariffs would cost the average American household a loss of $2,800 per household on average in 2024 dollars in purchasing power.

Higher tariffs on 75 trading partners imposed on April 2 were suspended for 90 days starting on April 9. Tariffs on China were temporarily lifted for 90 days on May 14 to negotiate a broader trade agreement.

Expedia did not respond to a request for comments.

• Walmart's announcement that it will raise prices due to tariffs has other retailers "delighted."
• The news gives retailers cover to raise their own prices, experts told BI.
• Trump's criticism of Walmart sends a warning about discussing price hikes.

Consumers may not be psyched about Walmart's announcement that it's going to raise prices because of President Donald Trump's tariffs, but other retailers are likely breathing a sigh of relief.

Retail analysts told Business Insider that Walmart did other companies a favor with the news, giving them more freedom to raise their own price tags.

"What they are doing is providing air cover for the tens of thousands of retailers — extra-large, large, medium, and small — all of whom are faced with exactly the same issue, and all of whom are going to be raising their prices," said Mark Cohen, a professor at Columbia Business School and the former director of retail studies at Columbia Business School. Other retailers are, he said, "delighted" about the benchmark Walmart set.

Retailers across the board are contending with rising costs, the experts told BI, but Walmart "leads the market on price," according to the cofounder of the blog Omni Talk Retail, Chris Walton. The country's biggest retailer said shoppers will probably start to see prices tick up at the end of this month and more drastically in June, and those BI spoke to agreed with that timeline.

"We have always worked to keep our prices as low as possible and we won't stop. We'll keep prices as low as we can for as long as we can given the reality of small retail margins," Molly Blakeman, a spokesperson for Walmart, told BI in a statement.

GlobalRetail analyst Neil Saunders wrote in an email that Walmart's honesty about price hikes might open the door for other retailers to have "open dialogues." Yet the honesty didn't come without consequences — Trump bashed the company in a Truth Social post, saying Walmart should, '"EAT THE TARIFFS,' and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I'll be watching."

Representatives for the White House directed BI to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's comments on Monday about Walmart, when she confirmed that Trump will be "watching" the company and said he "has always maintained that Chinese producers will be absorbing the cost of these tariffs."

Trump's reaction will likely influence how other retailers manage their own pricing conversations, the experts said.

"Retailers will have learned they need to be very careful — and it's very tricky — on how they articulate that so as to not wind up on a Truth Social post," Michael Baker, a senior analyst at D.A. Davidson, told BI. "That does add a layer of complication."

He anticipates executives will figure out how to more delicately discuss tariffs on coming earnings calls so as not to anger the president. Walton told BI that other retailers may try to avoid talking about rising costs publicly, and instead let shelf prices speak for themselves.

"President Trump has sent a warning shot that he doesn't like companies talking about price increases related to tariffs," Saunders wrote. "That may make some retailers more hesitant to draw a link, but I don't think it will stop them putting up prices. They will need to financially."

The president has issued not-so-subtle warnings about price hikes before, like when he sharply criticized Amazon for its reported plans to publicize how much tariffs were contributing to rising costs. Amazon said it had no plans to do so on its main site at the time, but experts told BI that the swift reaction sent a "warning signal to other companies" nonetheless.

Though Walmart may be one of the first big box retailers to publicize looming price hikes, it's better positioned to deal with the new tariffs than some competitors. Both Saunders and Baker said the company's scale gives it the ability to offset some of the tariff impact.

Two years ago, Zechariah Osburn sat down to fill out the Common Application for college. He dreaded going to school and sitting at a desk all day, but he'd always done well, so an undergraduate degree seemed like a no-brainer. His parents had pushed it, too. But staring down the application at midnight one night during his senior year, Osburn decided to scrap the plan. "I felt like a fraud," he tells me.

He didn't know what kind of career he wanted, and didn't have the money for college. Instead of taking out student loans and spending a few semesters partying and soul-searching, he decided to focus on growing his landscaping side hustle into a full-time business. Now, at 20, he's the owner of Z's Exterior Services, which does lawn care, mulching, power washing, and other landscaping services in northern Virginia. He's hired a handful of full- and part-time employees and has plans to continue expanding. And, he says, he still gets a taste of the college experience when he visits his girlfriend.

It's not that Osburn is passionate about mulching, but he does love running the business, and it's rewarding to make customers happy. "How much work you put in is how much return you're going to get," he says. Studying for hours and pouring tens of thousands of dollars into a degree doesn't always yield the same results, he says, as he hears about people taking on lots of debt and then struggling to find work.

Many Gen Zers are eyeing the ever-rising cost of college tuition, along with roiling uncertainty in many white-collar career fields, and are choosing an alternate path.

Americans are losing faith in the ROI of a college degree. In a 2023 Gallup poll, only 36% of respondents had a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the higher education system, dropping from 57% in 2015. A Pew Research study in 2024 found that just 22% of US adults thought that college was worth it if a student had to take out loans to attend. Zoomers are also most likely to feel that getting a degree is a waste of time and money, a 2025 survey from Indeed found. Per Experian, the average Gen Zer has about $23,000 in student debt. That load is starting to feel heavier now that the perks Gen Zers most want — including work-life balance, financial stability, and a path to becoming their own boss — are disappearing from white-collar jobs. Managers are calling workers back to the office and dismantling the career ladder by assigning entry-level tasks to generative AI bots and agents.

A survey from the early career site Handshake found that 62% of college seniors who were familiar with AI tools said they were at least somewhat concerned that rising automation via AI would affect their career prospects, up from 44% in 2023. Once-stable jobs in tech, consulting, recruiting, and law are all at risk of seeing the entry-level tasks increasingly given away to gen AI. Roles for recent college grads "deteriorated noticeably" in early 2025, with their unemployment rate jumping to 5.8%, up from 4.6% a year ago, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. President Donald Trump's tariffs are creating uncertainty in the market and discouraging employers from hiring new workers, and white-collar workers are feeling stuck in their roles.

Meanwhile, blue-collar jobs — some of which pay a stable six figures — are starting to look more like an oasis.

The proportion of students at two-year colleges focusing on vocational studies compared to other associate degrees grew from about 15% in 2019 to nearly 20% in 2024, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The fastest-growing jobs in the country, per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, are wind turbine technicians and solar panel installers, followed by roles in healthcare and some in tech, like data analysts or information security analysts. Jobs in construction, plumbing, electrical work, and transportation are all projected to grow faster than the average job-growth rate of 4% from 2023 to 2033.

The need for workers in renewable energy, commercial and home construction, and public infrastructure is expected to rise, thanks to projects like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and a global investment in new energy sources. Home prices are soaring in part thanks to construction worker shortages, and wages for those workers are up.

And just as demand is increasing, a swath of skilled, baby boomer laborers are getting ready to pack it up and retire. That will open up more gigs for people who want to work in these in-demand, automation-proof roles such as HVAC servicing, plumbing, and construction — and it's unlikely you'll hire a robot to come fiddle with your home's electrical wiring anytime soon. In fact, many analysts predict these fields could experience labor shortages, which is good news for Gen Z.

And where generative AI is stagnating growth in industries like tech or consulting, it's accelerating growth for young people who want to start their own businesses. ChatGPT and its ilk have become always-on assistants that help young entrepreneurs automate work like appointment scheduling and generating emails to customers — and they don't have to be put on payroll. And as the digital-first generation, Gen Z doesn't need school to train them on the kind of tech that can make these businesses more efficient.

"They're very used to working with technology; it's part of their daily life," says Gary Specter, the CEO of Simpro, which makes job and project management software for field service and trade contracting industries."You're seeing a coming together of technology and these hands-on jobs."

For some, a blue-collar pivot would mean abandoning the college dreams laid out by parents, siblings, and countless coming-of-age movies. As America's middle class grew, so did the drive for higher education. In 1970, just 11% of US adults had a bachelor's degree. By 2021, that number had swelled to 38%, according to US Census data. Sending kids to a university became less a privilege and more a given for many middle-class families. But that push ignored other viable career paths and gave rise to a stigma around blue-collar work that persists today, even as rising tuition costs have dampened the appeal of the college dream.

Ryan Daniels, 22, left behind college at the University of Florida after his freshman year in 2022 to pursue his pressure-washing business full time. "It was really shocking to people that I was going to let that opportunity go," he tells me. But he's not alone in that shift. The rate of young people enrolled in college dropped from 41% in 2012 to 39% in 2022, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Enrollment in college peaked in 2010, but has since declined from 18 million students to about 15.4 million in 2021.

Getting young people into the trades will still take a mindset shift. In a 2023 survey of US high schoolers by Jobber, a software for home professionals, 74% said they thought there was a stigma around choosing vocational school instead of a four-year college, and 79% said their parents wanted them to go to college, while only 5% said their parents encouraged vocational school. A Gallup survey found that around 70% of high school students had heard a lot about college, while less than a quarter had heard frequently about apprenticeships and vocational schools. And it may be blue-collar influencers, rather than a vocational school rep at an assembly, who pull more young people into these fields.

"Gen Z really is facing a new set of challenges," says Jennifer Herrity, who follows career trends at Indeed. "Social media has really introduced Gen Z to what working in new fields can be like."

Day-in-the-life videos have flooded YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, giving people a peek into careers that many may not have known about unless a family member worked in them. There are some that show consultants or tech workers shuttling from an early morning at Equinox to their offices and then from meeting to meeting, $9 matcha latte in hand, but the more visually interesting videos come from people doing hands-on work in their fields. There are electricians, plumbers, landscapers, and more who show themselves out in the wild getting their complicated jobs done. Osburn tells me he watched videos on social media about starting his landscape business. Now, he has 45,000 followers watching him on Instagram as he drives his trucks around Virginia . Lexi Abreu, an electrician with 200,000 followers on YouTube, walks viewers through tricky wiring jobs and makes tongue-in-cheek visual gags about working as a woman in a male-dominated profession.

While college kids pinch pennies, those who go into trades can start earning immediately. Average entry-level construction jobs start at around $19 an hour, and rise to $45 at the top level, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Maintenance and repair jobs start around $14 an hour but can go as high as $44 an hour. The average electrician and plumber make about $29 an hour, according to Indeed. Instead of surviving on cup noodles for four years, Daniels has built a business, RHI Pressure Washing, and can pay not just his own bills, but those of three employees. Already, people are increasingly seeing the value of working in the trades. In 2024, 66% of adults said they believed there were well-paid, stable jobs available to those with only high school diplomas or GEDs, up from 50% in 2018, a survey of about 1,500 people conducted by the think tank New America found.

The blue-collar perks don't mean college degrees are dying anytime soon. The median pay for a Gen Z college graduate in 2024 was $60,000, based on data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, compared to $40,000 for a high school graduate. That gap widens as college-educated workers age and advance through their fields. And some of these stable fields are hiring for college grads, too: The fastest-growing industry for new college grads is in construction, LinkedIn says, and entry-level workers are also rising in number in the utility sector and oil, gas, and mining industries.

Daniels would have graduated from college this month, but in that time, he has instead spun out his high school side hustle of pressure washing into a full business. He spends most of his day running the business side. That means using ChatGPT almost daily, whether it's to draft responses to customers or mass emails, Daniels says. Gen AI might "take away from white-collar jobs, and it really helps us out here."

Amanda Hoover is a senior correspondent at Business Insider covering the tech industry. She writes about the biggest tech companies and trends.

• Scott Bessent has said the uncertainty over tariffs is a trade negotiating tactic.
• Bessent said countries could "play us in the negotiations" if the US gives them "too much certainty."
• The US and China agreed to reduce their tariffs on each other by 115 percentage points for 90 days.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that President Donald Trump was employing "strategic uncertainty" as a negotiating tactic in his trade talks with other countries.

Bessent was speaking with CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" when he was asked about the uncertainty Trump's tariffs had brought to small businesses in the US.

"We didn't get here overnight in terms of this terrible trade situation we have with China, but also with the rest of the world. And President Trump is renegotiating these, and strategic uncertainty is a negotiating tactic," Bessent told Tapper.

"So, if we were to give too much certainty to the other countries, then they would play us in the negotiations," Bessent added. "I am confident that, at the ends of these negotiations, both the retailers, the American people, and the American workers will be better off."

Trump announced sweeping tariffs on more than 180 countries on April 2. A baseline rate of 10% went into effect on April 5. A higher set of tariffs, which varied by country, took effect on April 9 before Trump announced a 90-day pause on the same day. The on-and-off-again tariff announcements sparked a massive market sell-off.

That pause, however, didn't apply to China, which saw its tariff rates hit 145% in April.

Last week, Bessent announced that the US has reached an agreement with China to reduce their tariffs for 90 days.

Bessent said the US would slash its tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30% for 90 days. China said it would lower its tariffs from 125% to 10% over the same period.

"We don't want to decouple with China. And President Trump actually wants to open up China for business. So the manufacturing, we want to bring back," Bessent said in his interview on Sunday.

"During COVID, we realized that we had some very strategic shortfalls, whether it was medicines, semiconductors, steel, the other products. So the medium-term goal is to bring back these strategic industries as quickly as possible," Bessent added.

The White House and the Treasury didn't respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Scott Bessent said on Sunday that Donald Trump could raise tariff rates again for certain nations.
• "This means that they're not negotiating in good faith," Bessent told NBC's Kristen Welker.
• All eyes are on the Trump administration's trade talks, particularly with China.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday during an NBC interview that President Donald Trump will raise tariff rates again for nations that don't negotiate trade deals with the United States in "good faith."

During an interview on "Meet the Press," Bessent pointed to the higher tariffs imposed on myriad countries after Trump's April "Liberation Day" speech as a consequence of any failed talks.

"I think that it would be the April 2nd level," Bessent replied when asked by host Kristen Welker about the tariff rates some nations may face by the administration.

"Some countries were at 10%, some were substantially higher," he said. "The negotiating leverage that President Trump is talking about here is if you don't want to negotiate, then it will spring back to the April 2nd level."

Bessent also addressed Trump's remarks on Friday, when the president said nations may receive a letter from the administration outlining their effective tariff rate if talks are being held without sincerity.

"This means that they're not negotiating in good faith," Bessent said. "They are going to get a letter saying, 'Here is the rate.' So I expect that everyone would come and negotiate in good faith."

After Trump's "Liberation Day" speech, which sent global markets reeling, the president issued a 90-day pause on the higher "reciprocal" tariff rates that he sought to impose on numerous nations. Instead, most countries have been subject to a baseline 10% tariff rate while they conduct their respective trade discussions with the US.

A notable exception has been China. The US in April raised tariff rates on Chinese goods to a high of 145%. Last week, the US temporarily cut the tariff rate on Chinese goods to 30% as the two countries continue to engage in high-level trade talks. China also lowered its levies on US goods from 125% to 10%.

Earlier in May, the Trump administration announced a trade framework with the UK, with the US rescinding tariffs on British steel and automobiles and US farmers gaining increased market access in the UK.

• Companies are turning to consulting firms for help navigating Trump's tariffs.
• Firms are advising them to audit contracts, adjust pricing, and manage costs proactively.
• "Companies have more control than they realize," Shannon Copeland, CEO of SIB consulting, told BI.

If you are confused by what President Donald Trump's tariffs mean for you, you are not alone.

As businesses confront a new era of American protectionism, many are turning to consulting firms for strategies to adapt to the rapidly changing regulatory landscape.

Business Insider spoke to the leaders of some of the world's top consulting firms to find out what advice they give their clients.

Some businesses' first instinct is to pass the cost of tariffs onto the consumer. In March, the Association for Supply Chain Management surveyed 400 supply chain professionals and found that 65% of companies intended to do just that.

Several consultants told BI, however, that blanket price increases aren't always the best move.

Consumers are facing higher prices across the board, so unless the product is a basic necessity, trying to shift the cost will generally result in reduced demand, KPMG's national operations lead, Paul Hencoski, told BI. Ultimately, a business would be forced to cut prices to move stock, he said.

"Companies have more control than they realize," Shannon Copeland, CEO of SIB consulting told BI. As a cost-cutting specialist, SIB aims to help clients avoid overpaying in the areas they can control, so that when prices rise, they're not starting from a place of inefficiency, Copeland said.

"The businesses that fare best are the ones that don't leave their spend on autopilot," he said. "Get proactive and treat tariff exposure like any other enterprise risk."

He advised companies to audit vendor contracts, analyze rate structures, and assess recurring spend for hidden vulnerabilities.

With tariffs restricting supply chain maneuverability, the rapidly emerging topic companies need to be thinking about is "go to market," Boston Consulting Group Global Chairman Rich Lesser told BI.

He said they should be asking questions like: How do you understand your economics versus your competitors? How do you monitor what's happening in real time on a store shelf or in an industrial supply chain? How do you think about pricing for your business?

McKinsey Senior Partner Cindy Levy said some companies may benefit from revisiting prices more often. "Instead of once a year, they may adjust every few months. It's really about managing costs across the value chain, especially when raising prices isn't an option."

Other ways to cut costs include "changing packaging or ingredients, adjusting promotion strategies, or focusing on products that are under less cost pressure," she added.

Kristin Bohl, a PwC partner focused on customs and international trade, offered three broad tips: Create agile strategies, bring the right people together, and model out your impact.

"You cannot make informed decisions about your strategic response to the tariffs unless you know the financial impact of those tariffs on your business," she said. Options for businesses who wanted to avoid raising prices include delaying tariff payments or even getting a refund, she said.

In the short run, "consumers and businesses are likely to share the burden, with more of it falling on consumers over time," researchers at the University of Pennsylvania wrote in a brief on the economic impact of Trump's tariffs.

In early April, Trump announced a 90-day pause on his "reciprocal tariffs," which initially targeted about 185 countries. Since then, the administration has been negotiating with various trading partners, including Canada, Mexico, Japan, and China.

Trump announced an agreement with the UK this month, which includes "billions of dollars of increased market access for American exports," specifically agricultural products, Trump said.

The US and China, meanwhile, also reached an agreement. Both countries agreed to lower tariffs by 115% while retaining an additional 10% tariff, according to a statement by the White House.

That means the United States will remove the additional tariffs it imposed on China on April 8 and April 9, but keep duties levied on China prior to April 2. China, meanwhile, will remove the retaliatory tariffs it announced since April 4 and suspend or remove the non-tariff countermeasures taken against the United States since April 2.

When it comes to preparing for the long term, KPMG's Hencoski said companies need to construct a response team of people from across their organization that can digest all the impacts and develop a plan of action.

Companies are also "using this moment to revisit longer-term decisions around their footprint, suppliers, and even where to invest," Levy said. The smartest among them "aren't just reacting — they're preparing for a future where disruptions are the norm."

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• Americans are cutting back on salon visits due to rising costs from tariff policies.
• Gen Zers are visiting salons less, while millennials and Gen X are more likely to stop entirely, CivicScience reports.
• The beauty industry is set to grow at a fast pace over the next few years.

From boba tea to anti-depressants, prices are anticipated to rise under Trump's tariff policies and Americans are already starting to cut back on spending.

Forty-two percent of typical salon patrons said they are going less in the last six months in favor of DIY treatments at home, while 24% have given up the services entirely, per a report published on May 13 by the consumer analytics platform CivicScience.

The polling shows that habits differ by age, with Gen Zers most likely to visit salons less frequently and millennials and Gen Xer more likely to have stopped completely. CivicScience draws its data from polling internet users across third party websites, social media and mobile apps.

Fifty percent of those who used at-home beauty products — like DIY beauty kit subscriptions with press-on nails and at-home hair coloring products — cited cost-saving measures as the reason for their purchases, per CivicScience's survey. Additionally, over half of respondents indicated that they had not purchased beauty products in the past three months.

The CivicScience report also noted that YouTube and TikTok have been educational resources for people to learn make-up techniques and how to create beauty products at home. Though, it isn't clear whether people are relying on online tutorials for beauty tips as a direct result of the tariffs.

The beauty industry is anticipated to continue to grow by the billions over the following years. Between from 2023 to 2028, revenue is forecasted to increase by 6% in North America, per McKinsey's data forecast.

Do you have a story of giving up a product or service because of the tariffs? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• Walmart said last week it might have to raise prices because of Trump's tariffs.
• Trump was not happy about it.
• The president said Walmart made "billions of dollars" in 2024 and should "eat the tariffs."

President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Walmart should "eat the tariffs" after the retail giant suggested it might have to raise prices amid the upheaval brought on by the president's trade policies.

"Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain. Walmart made BILLIONS OF DOLLARS last year, far more than expected," Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

"Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, 'EAT THE TARIFFS,' and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I'll be watching, and so will your customers!!!" he added.

Trump's response came after Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said during an earnings call on Thursday that "higher tariffs will result in higher prices" even with the administration temporarily lowering the tariff rates for myriad countries over the past several weeks.

Also during the earnings call, Walmart CFO John David Rainey said that higher prices were likely in store for the company's customers in the coming weeks.

"There are certain items, certain categories of merchandise, that we're dependent upon to import from other countries, and prices of those things are likely going to go up, and that's not good for consumers," Rainey said.

In the first quarter of 2025, Walmart reported revenues of $165.6 billion, and its e-commerce sales rose by 21%.

Roughly one-third of the items that Walmart sells in the US come from other countries, particularly Canada, China, India, Mexico, and Vietnam.

Last month, Trump hiked tariffs on most Chinese goods to 145%, but earlier this week the rate was temporarily cut to a baseline of 30% as part of a 90-day pause on the higher tariffs. Trump has indicated that the tariffs might become "substantially higher" if the two countries don't forge a trade agreement.

A spokesperson for Walmart told Business Insider in a statement on Saturday that the company has always sought to keep prices low and "won't stop."

"We'll keep prices as low as we can for as long as we can given the reality of small retail margins," the spokesperson said.