ONE also announced the close of a new funding round.

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As AI companies race to improve the accuracy of large language models (LLMs) and apps built on top of them, a startup that has emerged as a key partner in that effort is announcing a significant round of funding. Turing, which works with armies of engineers to contribute code to AI projects — including assisting […]

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• Trump's tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports went into effect Monday night.
• Automakers rely heavily on a complex supply chain that routinely crosses borders.
• Industry groups and experts warned of price hikes as a result of the import taxes.

President Donald Trump's tariffs enacted Monday could increase the sticker price of at least 39 car models sold in the US.

The tariffs affect not just foreign automakers but many domestic nameplates, like GM's Chevrolet, as well. An Equinox SUV's transmission may be assembled in the US and shipped to Mexico for final assembly before finally ending up at a lot in Omaha, for example.

Automakers rely on a complex supply chain in which parts and vehicles regularly cross North American borders during the manufacturing process or before they hit dealer lots, thanks to various regional trade agreements inked over the years.

Government data shows 34 models on sale in the US that are imported from either Canada or Mexico, from both domestic and foreign manufacturers.

Experts predict manufacturing costs will rise anywhere from $4,000 to $12,000, with automakers passing much of that cost on to consumers in the form of higher prices. New vehicle prices have skyrocketed since 2020 and now average more than $50,000, according to Edmund's data.

When it comes to vehicles sold in the US, Ford imports the least, making about 78% of those cars, trucks, and SUVs domestically. Mazda, Volkswagen, and Mercedes-Benz import the most, industry data shows.

A trade group representing Ford, GM, and Stellantis said the import costs would stymie American competitiveness, increase consumer prices, and decrease investment in US jobs.

Shares of automakers fell sharply on Monday as Trump said there would be no last-minute reprieve like in February. Ford, GM, and Stellantis are down more than 14% since the November election. Honda is down more than 10%.

Vehicle parts and finished vehicles are the US' top imports from Mexico and second behind oil from Canada. Prices on other vehicles that rely on imported parts could also see increases, even if their final country of assembly is the US.

Here's a look at the models imported for sale in the US and where they are manufactured, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Prices on other vehicles that rely on imported parts could also increase.

BMW

• BMW 2-Series Coupe/Convertible (Mexico)
• BMW M2 Coupe (Mexico)
• BMW 3-Series Sedan (Mexico)

42.7% of BMW cars sold in the US are made domestically, according to Edmunds data.

Ford

• Ford Bronco Sport (Mexico)
• Ford Maverick (Mexico)
• Ford Mustang Mach-E (Mexico)
• Ford Mustang GTD (Canada)

78.3% of Ford vehicles sold in the US are made domestically, according to Edmunds data.

General Motors

• Chevrolet Blazer (Mexico)
• Chevrolet Blazer EV (Mexico)
• Chevrolet Equinox (Mexico)
• Chevrolet Equinox EV (Mexico)
• GMC Terrain (Mexico)

47.3% of GM vehicles sold in the US are made domestically, according to Edmunds data.

Honda

• Honda CR-V Hybrid (Canada)
• Honda Civic Sedan (Canada)
• Honda HR-V (Mexico)
• Honda Prologue (Mexico)
• Acurda ADX (Mexico)

58.9% of Honda vehicles sold in the US are made domestically, according to Edmunds data.

Hyundai

• Hyundai Tucson (Mexico)

Hyundai makes 38.4% of its vehicles vehicles sold in the US are made domestically, according to Edmunds data.

Kia

• Kia K4 (Mexico)

Kia is owned by Hyundai.

Mazda

• Mazda CX-30
• Mazda3

20.3% of Mazda vehicles sold in the US are made domestically, according to Edmunds data.

Mercedes-Benz

• Mercedes-Benz GLB (Mexico

36.5% of Mercedes-Benz vehicles sold in the US are made domestically, according to Edmunds data.

Nissan

• Infiniti QX50 (Mexico)
• Infiniti QX55 (Mexico)
• Nissan Sentra (Mexico)
• Nissan Kicks (Mexico)
• Nissan Versa (Mexico)

45.6% of Nissan vehicles sold in the US are made domestically, according to Edmunds data.

Stellantis

• Ram 2500-5500 (Mexico)
• Ram ProMaster (Mexico)
• Jeep Compass (Mexico)

• Chrysler Pacifica (Canada)

  68.2% of Stellantis vehicles sold in the US are made domestically, according to Edmunds data.

Toyota

• Toyota Tacoma (Mexico)
• Toyota RAV4/RAV4 Hybrid (Canada)
• Lexus NX (Canada)
• Lexus RX (Canada)

44.1% of Toyota vehicles sold in the US are made domestically, according to Edmunds data.

Volkswagen Group

• Audi Q5/SQ5 (Mexico)
• VW Jetta (Mexico)
• VW Taos (Mexico)
• VW Tiguan(Mexico)

27.8% of Volkswagen Group vehicles sold in the US are made domestically, according to Edmunds data.

Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., praised the likely decision by Honda to manufacture its popular Honda Civic model in Indiana instead of Mexico.

The move by the major automaker was triggered by President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on Mexico, which are set to go into effect on Tuesday after a month-long pause after a temporary agreement with the country, Reuters reported.

The outlet reported that production is likely to start in 2028 for over 200,000 vehicles, but the announcement has yet to be made public by the company.

"President Trump has taken the ‘kick me’ sign off the backs of our workers and manufacturers. This report is great news for Hoosiers and all Americans—and it’s only just the beginning," Banks said in an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital.

HERE'S HOW TRUMP'S TARIFFS ON CHINA COULD IMPACT DRUG PRICING AND OTHER HEALTHCARE COSTS

"The America First agenda is going to be racking up countless wins over the next four years," the senator added.

The report is presumably good news for the Greensburg, Indiana, plant of the Japanese company, which has over 3,000 employees and opened in 2008, according to its website. Greenburg itself has a population of just over 12,000 people, according to the United States Census Bureau data from 2023. WISH-TV reported that Honda only has one plant in Indiana right now. 

"It’s called the ‘TRUMP EFFECT,’" the White House’s rapid response account tweeted Monday.

Trump’s tariff policies on Mexico, Canada and China have made waves in recent weeks as proponents argue it’s a critical step in boosting American manufacturing and stopping illicit fentanyl trafficking, whereas opponents worry it will unnecessarily raise the price of goods. The president also announced that reciprocal tariffs all over the globe will take place on April 2.

TRUMP SAYS TARIFFS WILL GO INTO EFFECT MARCH 4 AFTER 'UNACCEPTABLE' FENTANYL LEVELS

"To the Great Farmers of the United States: Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!" Trump said on Truth Social on Monday.

As for Banks, he recently praised the reciprocal tariffs, saying they will likely serve as a benefit to the United States.

"The globalist approach to trade threw our workers under a bus driven by their foreign competitors," Banks tweeted on Feb. 13. "President Trump’s America First trade plan corrects this injustice that our industries and workers have faced for decades. The reciprocal tariffs announced today will bring back fairness and prosperity and stop Americans from being taken advantage of."

TRUMP WHITE HOUSE RIPS AUTO STATE GOVERNOR WHO ATTACKED PRESIDENT'S TARIFF PLANS: 'DEADLY STATUS QUO'

Honda is not the first automaker to reconsider its approach to tariff policies. Nissan’s CEO said last month that the company may move some production out of Mexico to accommodate the changes, although he did not say if it would be in the U.S. instead. 

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Zach Barth, the namesake of game studio Zachtronics, tends to make a certain kind of game.

Besides crafting the free browser game Infiniminer, which inspired the entire global Minecraft industry, Barth and his collaborators made SpaceChem, Infinifactory, TIS-100, Shenzen I/O, Opus Magnum, and Exapunks. Each one of them is some combination of puzzle game, light capitalism horror, and the most memorable introductory-level computer science, chemistry, or logistics class into which you unwittingly enrolled. Each game is its own thing, but they have a certain similar brain feel between them. It is summed up perhaps best by the Zachtronics team itself in a book: Zach-Like.

Barth and his crew have made other kinds of games, including a forward-looking visual novel about AI, Eliza, and multiplayer card battler Nerts!. And Barth himself told PC Gamer that he hates "saying Zach-like." But fans of refining inputs, ordering operations, and working their way past constraints will thrill to learn that Zach is, in fact, back.

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On Monday, Apple announced plans to invest more than $500 billion in the US over the next four years.

This is the "largest-ever" spending commitment that Apple has made in the US, supporting "a wide range of initiatives" focused on artificial intelligence, chip manufacturing, advanced research and development, and worker training. About 20,000 jobs will be created over those four years, Apple said, "of which the vast majority will be focused on R&D, silicon engineering, software development, and AI and machine learning."

Apple's plans include building a 250,000-square-foot server-manufacturing facility in Houston—which will open in 2026 and "play a key role in powering Apple Intelligence" and supporting AI cloud computing, Apple said. The tech giant will also "continue expanding data center capacity in North Carolina, Iowa, Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada," Apple's blog said.

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The U.S. government is leaning hard on tech companies to make more commitments to building their businesses in the country, and Big Tech is falling in line. On Monday, Apple laid out its own plans in that area: It will spend $500 billion over the next four years in areas like high-end manufacturing, engineering, and […]

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Popular TV host Mike Rowe believes that President Donald Trump’s policies will be better for the country in the long run.

Asked by Fox News Digital how he feels about Trump’s first few weeks back in office, Rowe indicated that he is "happy" with what he has seen so far and optimistic about the future outlook.

"I’m a one-issue guy, I got a foundation, we’re trying to close the skills gap, he wants to bring manufacturing back, and I am all for it," Rowe said of Trump from the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday. "But right now we got 7.2 million men, able-bodied, who are not looking for work. They’re just sitting out of the workforce. And we’ve got giant shortages already in dozens of skilled trades, so I think part of what has to happen is a PR campaign to reinvigorate the trades as we bring back the manufacturing."

THE AGE OF RELYING ON CREDENTIALS IS NEARING AN END, MIKE ROWE SAYS

Rowe noted that he is willing to put his money where his mouth is to assist the effort and indicated he was available to help Trump with the issue as well.

"I got a million bucks I am giving away this month to microworks.org to help train the next generation of skilled workers. If I could be of use in any other capacity in that regard, I am at his disposal," Rowe said.

MIKE ROWE WARNS ABOUT STIGMA 'GUNK' AROUND TRADES THAT KEEPS KIDS FROM EXPLORING INDUSTRY

Touching on Trump’s tariff and trade policies, Rowe acknowledged the possibility of some short-term pain for American industries but argued the payoff would be worth it in the end.

"Yes, they will hurt short term. Is it worth it long term?" Rowe said. "Look, do you want to be dependent on China? Do you want to be reliant on other countries? These are really simple, fundamental questions. If the answer is we want to be more independent, there’s going to be some short-term pain."

"I think it will be worth it to be less reliant on countries who hate us," Rowe added. "I think it will be worth it to be less dependent on countries that aren’t terribly concerned with what’s best for us. I am all for an equal playing field, and I am all for every kind of independence we can muster, whether it's energy independence, economic independence, workforce independence, all of it."

• The ailing German economy is a key concern for voters in Sunday's elections.
• Germany's reliance on Russian gas, rising Chinese competition, and lack of spending have hit growth.
• The government easing its "debt brake" and boosting spending could revive its economy, analysts say.

Germany's federal election this Sunday will be the latest European political race to pit establishment parties against populist upstarts, most notably the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its coalition partners against the Alternative für Deutschland (AFD), which counts Elon Musk among its fans.

The beleaguered German economy is bound to be a central issue. Friedrich Merz, the CDU leader expected to become chancellor, has campaigned on cutting taxes, red tape, and energy costs to deliver an economic renaissance.

Here's how Germany got to this point, the problems plaguing its economy — and how they could be solved.

Rise and decline

Germany rebuilt its economy after World War II to become a manufacturing powerhouse, building and exporting goods such as industrial machinery and high-end cars.

It has just under 84 million people and ranks as the world's third-largest economy, with a GDP of $4.7 trillion. That's behind the US at $29.2 trillion and China at $18.3 trillion, according to International Monetary Fund estimates for 2024. Germany's economy is bigger than of Japan at $4.1 trillion, the United Kingdom at $3.6 trillion, and France at $3.2 trillion.

However, the German economy contracted in 2023 and 2024 while all those peers grew, with the exception of Japan last year, and is set to lag behind its peers once again in 2025. The IMF forecasts 0.3% growth in real GDP this year, compared to 2.7% for the US, 4.6% for China, 1.1% for Japan, 1.6% for the UK, and 0.8% for France.

A key driver of Germany's slowdown is weakness in its core economic activities. Industrial output has tanked more than 10% since 2019, and about 350,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost over the same period, government data shows.

Auto giant Volkswagen, chemicals behemoth BASF, and steel and industrial goods titan Thyssenkrupp have shed more than $50 billion or about a third of their market value in the past five years, as investors have soured on German industry.

Myriad signs of economic decline are "fueling the sense that Germany's best days are behind it," Stefan Koopman, a senior macro strategist at Rabobank, said in a report this week.

The far-right AfD "capitalizes on this anxiety, blending restorationist rhetoric with extremist elements" and "channels economic and migration concerns into a broader narrative of national decline," he added.

In December Elon Musk said on X that "only the AfD can save Germany" — and has since posted about the party dozens of times, as well as interviewing its leader, Alice Weidel, on his social media platform.

Eggs in Russia's basket

Germany's past energy policies are key to explaining its economic pains.

For decades, Europe's biggest economy relied on cheap Russian gas to manufacture everything from steel to chemicals for export. However, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 caused energy prices to soar.

German officials also moved to punish Russia by reducing imports of its oil and depending on more expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) and renewable sources instead, which eroded their country's appeal to some foreign businesses.

Moreover, authorities began shuttering the country's nuclear power plants in 2011 after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, closing the final three in 2023. That decision made Germany even more reliant on Russian energy, making the weaning process even more painful.

From customer to competitor

Until about 10 years ago, German manufacturers saw China as a huge export market.

But since then, China has become much more of a competitor to Germany as it has ramped up exports of rival products including steel, machinery, solar panels, and electric vehicles.

Cheaper production costs and looser regulations in China have also led numerous German businesses to shift at least part of their operations there.

Germany has topped the UN's ranking of industrial competitiveness for 20 consecutive years, but China has jumped from 33rd to second place in the rankings over the same period, underscoring the threat it poses.

Frugal to a fault

German authorities have underinvested in areas such as energy, education, security, and infrastructure for years, which has weighed on national productivity and competitiveness.

A key reason is a constitutional "debt brake," imposed after the 2008 financial crisis, which limits the federal government's deficit to 0.35% of GDP. For comparison, the US deficit exceeded 6% last year.

"This policy is a handbrake on Germany's ability to support its economy and incongruous with policy in the rest of the world," Alison Savas, the investment director of Antipodes Partners, said in an emailed note.

Relaxing its spending constraints would allow Germany to stimulate its economy, meet the "pressing need" to invest in its public infrastructure, and satisfy likely demands for greater defense spending from the Trump administration, she added.

Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote on Substack that Germany's "obsession" with controlling its debt has meant it's gone from "role model to cautionary tale — a warning about the costs of rigid thinking."

Diagnosing the problem

Germany faces other challenges, including a shrinking workforce and aging population, a shortage of skilled workers, a lack of affordable childcare, and frustrating levels of bureaucracy.

Its myriad issues are "symptoms of a deeper malaise: chronically weak domestic demand," Koopman said in his report. The German economy "parasitized on foreign demand to sustain its own existence," he continued, adding that it's been shored up for decades by other countries' consumption, investment, and spending on security and stability.

The remedy might be large-scale government spending on everything from energy and defense to education, infrastructure, and technology, Koopman added.

"Cutting taxes, cutting red tape and/or or cutting costs won't be enough to cut it," he said, warning that if Germany fails to ramp up its spending, it "risks becoming a 'has been' in the global economy."

FIRST ON FOX: President Donald Trump’s tariffs will be a boon for an Ohio-based steel mill and its employees, the CEO of JSW Steel USA, a subsidiary of a massive India-based steel manufacturer, told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. 

"It's a good piece of the formula that results in our company increasing utilization in the next 12 months, from 68% to probably 84%, and beyond that in years to come. So it's a very exciting time for us," JSW Steel USA CEO Robert Simon told Fox News Digital of Trump’s tariff plan in a phone interview on Thursday evening. 

Simon has served as the CEO of JSW Steel USA since March of last year, bringing with him more than 30 years of experience in the steel industry. He spoke to Fox News Digital following Trump announcing his administration’s "fair and reciprocal plan on trade," which he celebrated during a press conference as a project that will flood the U.S. with jobs as trading partners move their industries to U.S. soil to avoid tariffs. 

JSW USA is a subsidiary of Mumbai-headquartered JSW Group, which owns India’s second-largest private steel company, JSW Steel. JSW USA has two steel locations in the U.S., one at Mingo Junction, Ohio, and another operation in Baytown, Texas. 

TRUMP DETAILS HIS RECIPROCAL TARIFF PLANS, ASKS FOREIGN COUNTRIES TO 'TREAT US FAIRLY': 'DELIVER RECIPROCITY'

Simon told Fox News Digital that across his more than 30 years in the industry, U.S. steel manufacturers have complied with strict environmental and safety practices, and paid their employees fairly, while foreign steel manufacturers could skirt U.S. regulations while exporting their goods to the U.S. 

"We, as steel producers, we paid our employees fair wages, treated them fairly, met some of the most – if not the most strict – environmental requirements in the world, and those practices in our markets, with the simple supply-demand equation establishes market pricing."

"The frustration is, how is it fair that others that don't treat their employees the same way, don't follow the same rules, don't follow environmental practices… they get government subsidies. How is it fair that they can come into our markets and take market share when it's not an equal playing field?" he said. 

Simon said the Ohio plant alone will likely see a minimum increase of 100 jobs in the next year under Trump’s tariff plan. 

"As you look at that increase in utilization coupled with the overall increase in production that we foresee in the next three to five years, we estimate, at a minimum, a 100 jobs increase in the next 12 plus months associated with that utilization rate increase," he said. 

WHO GETS HIT HARDEST BY STEEL AND ALUMINUM TARIFFS?

Trump's administration issued a fact sheet last week restoring a 25% tariff on steel, which detailed "domestic steel and aluminum industries and achieving sustainable capacity utilization of at least 80%." JSW Steel USA told Fox News Digital that they are already on track to increase their utilization rate from 68% to 84% – higher than Trump’s target number of 80%. 

Under the first Trump administration, JSW Steel USA notably sued the federal government in 2019 over tariffs regarding imported steel-slab materials. The company now makes all domestic steel-slab materials as part of the JSW Group’s belief that its facilities both make products and supply the product in the communities they serve.

Simon celebrated in his comments to Fox Digital that Ohio families that had long worked in the steel industry are making a return to the factory as the industry reinvigorates under the first and second Trump administrations. JSW USA purchased the Ohio factory in 2018, after it had operated as a Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel plant, but sat dormant for years. 

TRUMP ADVISOR TEASES NEW ‘GOLDEN AGE’ OF U.S. STEEL AND ALUMINUM

"This is a company that had been shut down for over seven years, when we acquired it. We hired a workforce, trained a workforce, all from the local area. What's really cool to see is we've got employees whose grandparents and great-grandparents worked in this same company, which ended up being shut down, and they're part now of reviving that company and bringing it to an offering of products that's extremely competitive and extremely impressive in terms of its value added products," Simon said. 

Trump announced a reciprocal tariff plan on Thursday, tapping Howard Lutnick, his nominee for commerce secretary, to produce a report on reciprocal trade relations within 180 days. Lutnik said Thursday that he will have the report ready for Trump by April 1. 

WHAT ARE TARIFFS, HOW DO THEY WORK AND WHO PAYS FOR THEM?

​​"On trade, I have decided for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff – meaning whatever countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them no more, no less. In other words, they charge us a tax or tariff and we charge them the exact same tax or tariff. Very simple," he said at the White House on Thursday. 

Trump touted that the plan will lead to a job boon in the U.S. as foreign trading partners move operations stateside to avoid the reciprocal tariffs. 

"They can build a factory here, a plant or whatever it may be, here," Trump said Thursday afternoon from the Oval Office. "And that includes the medical, that includes cars, that includes chips and semiconductors. That includes everything. If you build here, you have no tariffs whatsoever. And I think that's what's going to happen. I think our country is going to be flooded with jobs."

Simon told Fox News Digital that Trump's business and deal-making abilities are "obvious to everybody" as he whips through dozens of executive actions and orders in just a few weeks back in the Oval Office, remarking that it's "pretty amazing." 

"It's become obvious to everybody that Mr. Trump is not a politician, right, but, more of a business person stepping in and leading our country, from much more of a business perspective than as a career politician. Like it or not, for those folks that have different opinions, this results in very quick negotiations. I don't think I've ever in my time here seen so much movement, so much decision-making, so many decisions being made in this shorter period of time since he's been in office. It's pretty, pretty amazing," he said. 

Trump also met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, and the two discussed trade, the economic relationship between India and the United States and military sales. The pair also "committed to drive opportunities for U.S. and Indian companies to make greenfield investments in high-value industries in each other’s countries," including naming JSW’s operations at Texas and Ohio as a prime ongoing investment in the U.S., according to a joint statement from the two nations. 

"The steel tariffs enacted by President Trump are a necessary step in leveling the playing field for American steelworkers and manufacturers. Foreign competitors fail to protect their workforce at the same safety standards, do not compensate them fairly, and produce steel that contributes to environmental degradation, all the while, seeking to flood the U.S. market, taking advantage of our strong economy, driving a collapse of our markets in the process," Simon added in comment provided to Fox Digital.

Brands are constantly trying to streamline how they source packaging materials and ingredient suppliers for their products in order to quickly meet consumer demand. However, even today this process can involve some laborious wandering around trade shows. Keychain is an AI-powered platform that aims to quickly connect the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry with manufacturing […]

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Dan Kolcun runs a business breaking in thousands of footballs each season for NFL and college teams. He's prepped balls for multiple Super Bowls and for Ohio State, the highest-valued college football team. But before 2006, only NFL home teams were allowed to use specially prepared balls in games. Then a group of players, including Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, convinced the NFL to let both teams choose. That inspired college programs to take prepping more seriously too. Today, footballs are customized throughout production, from the leather to the shape of the ball.

ANNA, Ohio—Honda's Anna Engine Plant has changed a little since I last visited. As we wound our way past the four-cylinder production line, the green-painted scaffolding and overhead gantries gave way to a more open expanse of the cavernous building. Conveyor belts have been replaced by little robots that move pallets around, and bright LED lights illuminate the yellow-painted walls. In the middle of it all is a series of massive 6,000-ton presses, newly installed to cast the battery packs of Honda's next US-made electric vehicles.

A little more than an hour outside of Columbus, the Anna Engine Plant started building engines for the Goldwing motorcycle, something that would have been of deep interest to me and all the other schoolchildren who were obsessed with what seemed like the world's most excessive two-wheeler.

That was 40 years ago, and in the intervening years, the factory has expanded to encompass 2.8 million square feet (260,000 m2), where 3,000 people build four- and six-cylinder engines for the Hondas and Acuras people drive here in the US. Ars was last there in 2020, back then because it was hand-building the twin-turbo V6 engines for the Acura NSX, which was assembled just down the road.

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FIRST ON FOX: The CEO of the largest steel producer in the U.S., Nucor Corp., endorsed President Donald Trump's tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, Fox News Digital learned. 

"Nucor applauds the first steps taken by President Trump in his America First Trade Agenda," Leon J. Topalian, the chair, president and CEO Nucor Corp., wrote in a statement dated Friday that was obtained by Fox News Digital. "We look forward to working with President Trump to enforce our trade laws and strengthen American manufacturing!" 

The subject line of the letter reads, "Presidential Executive Orders on Canada, Mexico, and the People’s Republic of China."

Nucor is based out of North Carolina and serves as the nation's largest steel producer and scrap metal recycler. 

TRUMP DEFENDS TARIFFS, ACCUSES CANADA OF BEING 'VERY ABUSIVE OF THE UNITED STATES': VIDEO

The company's CEO recently joined CNBC's Jim Cramer and celebrated Trump's then-upcoming tariffs as tools to end "currency manipulation" and the "subsidization" of steel coming to the U.S. from abroad. 

"We saw the memo last Monday on tariffs and what they're going to do," Topalian said Tuesday. "And I think they're going to be far-reaching, and I think they're going to be very broad to, again, stop the illegal dumping, the manipulation, currency manipulation and subsidization of steels coming into the shores of the U.S."

"We're the largest steel company in North America, so, of course, we took a look a year and a half ago and, and, we'll continue to look and see if those assets come back," he said. "But, part of the reason we didn't move forward is valuation. We're not going to overpay for assets."

NUCOR ONCE THWARTED A CHINESE ATTEMPT TO STEAL ITS TECHNOLOGY

Trump signed an executive order on Saturday authorizing tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China through the new International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The tariffs take effect on Tuesday and include 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and a 10% tariff on imports from China. Energy resources from Canada will have a lower 10% tariff.

The tariffs were created in light of "extraordinary" threats stemming from "illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl," according to the order. 

NUCOR CEO ON TARIFFS: WE'VE BEEN IN A TRADE WAR FOR 30 YEARS

"This challenge threatens the fabric of our society," the executive order states. "Gang members, smugglers, human traffickers, and illicit drugs of all kinds have poured across our borders and into our communities.

"Canada has played a central role in these challenges, including by failing to devote sufficient attention and resources or meaningfully coordinate with United States law enforcement partners to effectively stem the tide of illicit drugs."

Foreign leaders have railed against the tariffs. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Saturday that her country "categorically reject[s] the White House's slander against the Mexican government of having alliances with criminal organizations, as well as any intention of intervention in our territory."

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau encouraged residents to "buy Canada" by checking labels at stores to ensure a product is made in the Great White North.

TRUMP SAYS CANADA WOULD HAVE NO TARIFFS AS 51ST STATE, AS OBSERVERS BRACE FOR TRADE WAR

Trump defended the tariffs Sunday evening while talking to reporters gathered at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. 

"Canada has been very abusive of the United States for many years. They don't allow our banks," Trump said. "And you know that Canada does not allow banks to go in, if you think about it. That's pretty amazing. If we have a U.S. bank, they don't allow them to go in."

"Canada has been very tough for oil on energy. They don't allow our farm products in, essentially. They don't allow a lot of things in. And we allow everything to come in as being a one-way street."

Former President Joe Biden also imposed tariffs during his administration, including on steel and aluminum shipped from Mexico to the U.S. but made elsewhere.

Fox News Digital's Andrea Margolis contributed to this report. 

• Elon Musk brought up fairy tales, trains, and toddlers during Tesla's fourth-quarter earnings call.
• The carmaker's CEO also touched on telescopes, Superman, and inventors shouting "Eureka!"
• Scroll down for Musk's nine best quotes from the call.

Elon Musk touched on everything from fairy tales and toddlers to trains and telescopes during Tesla's fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.

The automaker's CEO nodded to "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," joked about people shooting lasers out of their eyes like Superman, and said he wanted to "make manufacturing cool again."

Here are Musk's nine best quotes from the call:

1. "Some of these things I've said for quite a long time, and I know people have said, 'Well, Elon is the boy who cried wolf like several times.' But I'm telling you, there's a damn wolf this time, and you can drive it. In fact, it could drive you. It's a self-driving wolf." (Musk was joking about how he'd repeatedly pushed back the release of Full Self-Driving.)
2. "For a lot of people, they, like, their experience of Tesla autonomy is like — if it's even a year old, if it's even two years old — it's like meeting someone when they're like a toddler and thinking that they're going to be a toddler forever. But obviously they're not going be a toddler forever. They grow up. But if their last experience was like, 'Oh, FSD was a toddler.' It's like: 'Well, it's grown up now. Have you seen it? It's like, walks and talks.'"

3. "It's one of those things where I think long term, Optimus will be — Optimus has the potential to be north of $10 trillion in revenue, like it's really bananas. So, that, you can obviously afford a lot of training compute in that situation. In fact, even $500 billion training compute in that situation would be quite a good deal." (Musk was discussing how much it might cost to train Tesla's humanoid robots and how lucrative they could be for the company.)

   

4. "Now, with Optimus, there's a lot of uncertainty on the exact timing because it's not like a train arriving at the station for Optimus. And like, we're literally designing the train and the tracks and the station in real time."
5. "There is no company in the world that is as good at real-world AI as Tesla. I don't even know who's in second place. Like you say, like, who's in the second place for real-world AI? I would need a very big telescope to see them. That's how far behind they are."

6. "The Hollywood thing is like, it's like some lone inventor in a garage goes 'Eureka!' and, suddenly, it files a patent and, suddenly, there's millions of units. I'm like, listen guys, we're missing really 99% of the story.

   "Hollywood shows you the 1% inspiration but forgets about the 99% perspiration of actually figuring out how to make that initial prototype manufacturable and then manufactured at high volume such that the product is reliable, low cost, consistent, doesn't break down all the time, and that is 100 times harder at least than the prototype."

7. "Obviously, humans drive without shooting lasers out of their eyes — I mean, unless you're Superman."
   (Musk was explaining why he doesn't believe LiDAR is the best technology to enable autonomous driving.)
8. "Well, at Tesla, obviously, we think manufacturing is cool. SpaceX, we think manufacturing is cool. But in general, for talented Americans, they need to — beyond my companies, beyond me and my teams here, in general, we need to make manufacturing cool again in America. And like, I honestly think people should move from like law and finance into manufacturing. That's my honest opinion. We have too many — this is both a compliment and a criticism. We have too much talent in law and finance in America, and there should be more of that talent in manufacturing."
9. "But yeah, we're in this perverse situation where people will turn the car off autopilot so the computer doesn't yell at them, check their text messages while steering the car with their knee and not looking out the window."
   (Musk was discussing how Tesla's autopilot warns drivers not to look at their devices for safety, leading some to enable manual driving and then check their texts and emails.)

Using LEDs has the potential to bring down the cost of biomanufacturing, allowing such processes to make materials that previously would have been too expensive. 

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China has immediately retaliated against the US following new export curbs that the Biden administration announced Monday, which restrict a wider range of Chinese businesses from accessing any foreign products that include even a single US-made chip.

On Tuesday, China's Ministry of Commerce punched back, announcing a ban that takes effect immediately on "exports of 'dual-use items' related to gallium, germanium, antimony, and superhard materials to the US," Reuters reported. Such "dual-use items" cover goods and technologies used for civil or military purposes, while the rare-earth metals are critical to tech manufacturing.

"In principle, the export of gallium, germanium, antimony, and superhard materials to the United States shall not be permitted," China's ministry said.

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Over the past two years, American businesses have been engaged in a rapid-fire restructuring of their corporate hierarchies. In the name of "flattening," they've been waging war on middle managers — trimming an entire tier of supervisory jobs that Mark Zuckerberg derided as nothing more than "managers managing managers, managing managers, managing managers, managing the people who are doing the work." Following Meta's lead, Citi reduced its 13 layers of management to eight. UPS axed 12,000 of its 85,000 managers. And in September, Amazon announced plans to increase its ratio of workers to supervisors by at least 15%. "I hate bureaucracy," CEO Andy Jassy declared, echoing the zeal for "efficiency" that Elon Musk, one of the pioneers of the current corporate flattening, is now seeking to unleash on the halls of government.

But here's the thing: It's not just that tens of thousands of middle managers have lost their jobs. It's that the jobs themselves have been eliminated — and they may not be coming back.

To test that theory, I asked Revelio Labs, a workforce analytics provider, to crunch the numbers for me, using its database of job postings aggregated from across the internet. It divided employees into two buckets of managers (senior leadership and middle management) and two buckets of lower-level employees (experienced associates and junior workers). Then it looked at how many job openings employers are posting today, compared with the hiring heyday of 2022.

What the data reveals is stark. Earlier this year, when white-collar hiring was at its lowest point, openings for junior roles — entry-level positions requiring little to no prior experience — were down by 14%. But hiring had plunged by 43% for middle managers and 57% for senior leaders. If you had any sort of management experience, your job prospects were bleak.

Since then, though, we've seen a significant rebound in job postings for almost everyone — except middle managers. In October, employers were still advertising 42% fewer middle-management positions than they did in April 2022. Which means that those who lost their jobs in the Great Flattening are now facing a whole new horror: There aren't any positions left for them to take.

The assault on middle managers dates back to the 1980s, when globalization gave rise to a new philosophy of management that prioritized cost cutting over everything else. Supervisors — earning big salaries for rubber-stamping the work of their subordinates — became an easy target. Trim the fat, the thinking went, and the efficiencies will follow. From 1986 to 1998, one study found, the number of managers reporting to division heads dropped by 25%. At the same time, the number of managers reporting directly to a CEO nearly doubled.

Executives got the flattening that they wanted. But it's unclear whether getting rid of middle managers actually made companies run more efficiently. As I wrote last year, one study found that businesses with fewer layers of management were able to deliver their products faster. But study after study found that when middle managers do their jobs right, they bolster performance more than either top executives or ground-level employees. Supervisors do real work. They motivate. They mentor. They communicate critical information to and from different parts of the company. They smooth out glitches and spot opportunities. They're the ones who keep the trains running.

But now is an especially bad time to be an experienced supervisor. According to an analysis by Live Data Technologies, another workforce analytics provider, middle managers made up 32% of layoffs last year, compared with 20% in 2019. And as the data from Revelio Labs shows, companies appear to have no intention of refilling those supervisory roles, even as they resume hiring for lower-level jobs. That has created a double whammy for middle managers: There's a sharp spike in job seekers, and they're competing for an increasingly small universe of open roles.

Over the past year I've heard from hundreds of managers mired in this double whammy. What's struck me is how eerily similar their stories are. They all come across as smart and articulate. They're all in their late 40s to 50s. When they got laid off from their supervisory jobs, they didn't expect their job search to be too difficult. After all, they'd spent decades honing their skills and climbing the corporate ladder, often at leading companies. Surely, all that experience had to count for something. But despite sending out hundreds of applications, they can't get anyone to return their calls. They're utterly baffled, and they all have the same question: What is going on here?

It's the question I've been asking, too — combing through government data, talking to employers and economists, studying applicant-tracking systems. Because so many of the frustrated job seekers are older, I thought maybe we were seeing some new form of age discrimination: Call it the Curse of the Gen X Professional. But it's only after seeing the data from Revelio Labs that I finally understand what's going on: There just aren't enough supervisory jobs to go around anymore.

In response, many displaced managers have swallowed their pride and started applying to jobs lower on the corporate food chain. As Revelio Labs' data shows, nonmanagerial jobs are faring much better these days — and you'd think companies would be thrilled to get the experience and know-how of seasoned professionals on the cheap. But take the example of a former middle manager I'll call Rick, who is 54. After getting rejected for all the supervisory jobs he could find, he widened his search to include entry-level positions — only to be rejected for being overqualified.

At this point, all Rick wants is a chance to prove himself. "Forget the titles, forget all that other stuff," he told me. "I just need a job. My unemployment runs out in about 30 days. I'll come in and do a great job for you."

This is the paradox that lies at the heart of the Great Flattening: The very experience that should be a selling point for senior leaders has become a liability. Some have tried deleting former jobs from their resumes, to hide their supervisory experience. Others, like Rick, omit the year they graduated from college. One former chief operating officer, whose search has gone so poorly that she's now applying to be an executive assistant, told me she addresses her overqualified-ness in her cover letters. "I understand that my résumé has some big titles on it, but let me tell you who I am at heart," she writes. "I really want to be doing this, and I'm not wedded to the title."

What all the out-of-work managers want to know is: When is the hiring freeze for supervisors going to thaw? That depends, in large part, on whether companies come to view the flattening as a success. Many CEOs insist they aren't getting rid of middle managers just to save money. They think having fewer layers of management will, as Zuckerberg put it, create a "stronger" company that can build "higher-quality products faster." That hints at a dark prospect for managers like Rick: The rung of the corporate ladder they spent their careers reaching could be gone for good.

There's a chance, of course, that the current craze for corporate flattening could ease over time. Companies are already discovering that having few middle managers is placing an enormous strain on their operations. The supervisors who survived the purge have been forced to take on much larger teams, and they're burned out to a crisp. Gen Zers, deprived of their mentors, are increasingly disengaged. Departments are more siloed than ever, with no one to do the tedious and thankless and essential work of coordinating across different teams. The best hope for managers like Rick is that CEOs are getting a real-time refresher in the value of managers.

"I'm not at that point in my life where I'm ready to take that step back," Rick told me. "I just want to work with good people and enjoy what I'm doing. I could go to Domino's and start delivering pizza. But I know I can do a lot more than that."

Aki Ito is a chief correspondent at Business Insider.

When new employees join Patagonia, they're handed a copy of "Let My People Go Surfing." The company's founder, Yvon Chouinard, who wrote the book in 2005, said it was intended as a "philosophical manual for the employees of Patagonia."

In the book, Chouinard declares that treating employees well is a key corporate responsibility. "One thing I never wanted to change, even if we got serious: Work had to be enjoyable on a daily basis," Chouinard wrote. "We needed to blur that distinction between work and play and family."

Since its founding in 1973, Patagonia has positioned itself as a workplace nirvana — a community more so than a company, one that prioritizes the well-being of the Earth and of its employees above all else. But in the past few years, as sales have slowed, the outdoor-apparel brand has buckled down, cutting redundant jobs, tracking performance metrics, and banning long-standing practices such as letting sales representatives sell Patagonia samples to friends and family on the side.

It has also started to respond to customers' demand for delivery at Amazon speed. The rejiggering is a means of survival, a necessity, Patagonia says, to provide for its 3,000-plus employees. But the retailer is now dealing with the fallout from disappointed staffers who say the new rigidity feels antithetical to the company's ethos.

"It's always been a self-critical culture," Vincent Stanley, Patagonia's director of philosophy, told Business Insider. "Whenever the company does something that's not well understood to be part of the values, you get a lot of internal reaction to it."

Patagonia is a billion-dollar company with more than 70 stores worldwide. The brand's $130 vests and $280 jackets are just as likely to be sported on Wall Street as in the great outdoors — earning it the nickname "Patagucci." Patagonia's commitment to do good is integral to the brand. Over the years it has donated the equivalent of $226 million to environmental causes, and in 2001 it created an Earth tax, pledging 1% of sales to preserve and restore the natural environment.

Patagonia's sales soared during the pandemic. From summer 2020 to summer 2022, sales grew at a rate of about 20% to 25% companywide, Alan Adams, a former US regional sales rep for Montana, Wyoming, and Alaska, told BI. Adams, who left the company in 2023, said COVID-19 restrictions led to an "unsustainable" boom, adding that the renewed interest in outdoor activities had people stocking up on all-weather gear and apparel. For a period, as California ports faced major backlogs, Patagonia relied on planes to transport about a third of its goods. (Before the pandemic, about 80% of Patagonia stock was shipped by barge, a decidedly more environmentally friendly option.) A Patagonia spokesperson told BI that it uses less air freight now than it did before the pandemic.

Patagonia started to attract a new customer base less attached to its green credentials and more demanding of superspeed delivery.

"What we do to make the customer happy and to save ourselves from backlash is not environmentally sustainable," said a current customer-service, or CX, manager who has been at the company for multiple years. "If someone doesn't like their repair, it doesn't match perfectly, then we ship them a new item overnight."

The Patagonia spokesperson said it had been tricky to navigate the demand for instant gratification. "What I don't know is how do we support our customer-service team when customers are like, 'Well, Amazon sends it to me overnight. Why can't Patagonia?'" the spokesperson said. She added that Patagonia has an "ironclad guarantee" to give customers a new item if they don't like a repair. While overnight shipping is an option, Patagonia tries to direct customers away from that choice with pricing and messaging, she said.

Workers said Chouinard, now 86, was typically one to challenge decisions that prioritized profit over sustainability. Adams recalled that at an event in about 2013 in Idaho, Chouinard seemed shocked at how large Patagonia's sales representatives' trucks were. He kicked a tire and asked one rep: "Why do you have this huge truck? That's not what we're about."

In September 2022, Chouinard, who sits on Patagonia's board, announced that he was giving away his shares of the company to a newly formed trust to fight the climate crisis.

At about this time, Patagonia began reassessing its operations. For the better part of the year, the spokesperson said, the senior leadership team was "locked in a room" figuring out which priorities they weren't achieving and how decision-making could be improved. They also hired consultants to help restructure the company, the spokesperson added.

Many employees felt as though Patagonia's new direction directly threatened the utopia they — and customers — had been sold. A worker from the digital team expressed concern about Patagonia's buy-now, pay-later feature that launched this past June.

"It feels like it's encouraging people to spend more money than they can currently afford, and buy more things that they don't need, which goes directly against Patagonia's mission and anti-consumption message," the employee said.

Stanley, the company's director of philosophy, told BI that growth had brought about "complicated decisions" like how to balance the long-term business health against the company's core values while providing a consistent level of benefits to all employees. Financial stability, he said, was crucial for Patagonia to honor its commitments.

Like many companies in the wake of the pandemic, Patagonia was left with a surplus of staff and inventory, Adams said.

In the past few years, it has tried to rein in costs and streamline business operations. In the fall of 2022, Patagonia said it would stop allowing sales reps to sell extra clothing samples to their friends and family. Adams, who made about $350,000 in 2022, according to tax documents seen by BI, said this was a significant change. He said that even with a promised increase to his base salary and bonus, he would have expected to bring in just under $200,000 in 2023 under the new rules. (The spokesperson said the salary increases and bonuses were meant to fully make up any differences in sales reps' total pay.)

The following year, Patagonia reversed a three-year-old policy of closing for the last week of December. The Patagonia spokesperson told BI that the new policy asked CX and warehouse employees to volunteer for holiday shifts in order to ensure customers received service during the busy season.

In July 2023, Patagonia introduced a career-leveling plan for all US employees to more clearly define roles and match pay grades to the market standard. The company also became more focused on tracking metrics across teams. "It used to be that we would be able to stay on the phone with a customer for an hour and a half and just connect with them and talk to them," the CX employee who has been at Patagonia for multiple years told BI. "And now we get dinged for having long phone calls."

Eventually, though, the company began cutting jobs. In June, Patagonia gave 90 employees on the CX team 72 hours to decide whether they wanted to relocate to one of seven US hubs or leave their jobs. Only four chose to relocate, according to an internal memo seen by BI.

The Patagonia spokesperson told BI that the changes were "crucial for us to build a vibrant team culture" and that the CX team had been overstaffed by 200% to 300%.

Three months later, Patagonia announced that 41 corporate staffers had been let go. In an internal memo sent the day the layoffs were announced, Stanley wrote that the company was experiencing the first sales decline in its history. In a follow-up FAQ about the layoffs, Stanley added that because of the financial strains, travel would be limited, bonuses would be lowered, and hiring would be paused across the company.

After being told for years how important employees' happiness was and even being handed a book expounding these merits, workers were shaken. In "Let My People Go Surfing," Chouinard called layoffs "almost unthinkable" for Patagonia and described a round of job cuts in 1991 as "the single darkest day in the company's history."

Several people said the 72-hour deadline for CX employees was insufficient to make such a major life decision. Another CX worker still at the company said the ultimatum was presented without "dignity or care or anything that Patagonia stands for." During a time when workers more generally were growing distrustful of their workplaces, many felt Patagonia was trying to "quiet fire" staffers, with one employee calling it "an easy way for them to reduce their head count rather than waiting for attrition."

Nick Helmreich, a team lead at Patagonia's store in Reno, Nevada, since 2022, recalled one colleague telling him, "Camelot is truly dead."

Many employees BI talked to said that, despite the recent upheavals, the company still treated its employees better than most corporations. But they said the brand was not living up to the standards with which it markets itself. In March, the 25 employees working at Patagonia's Reno store formed the company's first union. "Pay is really only one of the reasons for organizing," Helmreich said. "Employees aren't going to be excited about protecting the planet if you cannot protect the people doing that work."

The CX worker who's been at the company for years told BI that "the focus appears to be shifting away from the principles of mutual respect and community that Patagonia has long championed."

Patagonia said it takes employees' concerns seriously.

But as Stanley wrote in his internal note in September, the workforce may not always agree with leadership's decisions: "The balancing act is delicate but is not essentially one of compromising between opposing interests (though some horse trading is involved). We are at our best when we can take a single action that benefits each of our stakeholders, or as many as possible."

The write downs occurred throughout the current fiscal year as the situation at Northvolt deteriorated.

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