China's landmark inland trade hub sees surge in goods transport after truce in tariff war with US
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New York Post
20 minutes ago
- New York Post
Vladimir Putin gives Alaska man new motorcycle after he complained about cost to repair his Soviet-era bike because of war
Vladimir Putin gave an Alaska man a new motorcycle after he became a viral sensation in Russian state media when he complained that the Ukraine war was making it more expensive to repair the Soviet-era bike he was a driving. Mark Warren, of Anchorage, said he was handed the keys to the spanking new Ural motorbike in a motel parking lot by a Russian embassy staffer last week after Putin's high-stakes meeting with President Trump. 'I have to say that this is a personal gift from the President of the Russian Federation,' the employee told Warren in a propaganda clip blasted out by Russian state media. The bizarre chain of events unfolded after a Russian TV crew, in town ahead of the Putin-Trump meeting, flagged the retired fire inspector down as he was running errands on his Soviet-era bike on Aug. 9. Mark Warren, of Anchorage, said he was handed the keys to the spanking new Ural motorbike in a motel parking lot by a Russian embassy employee last week after Vladimir Putin's high-stakes meeting with President Trump. RUSSIA-1/Handout They initially admired the motorcycle before peppering Warren with questions about the upcoming summit and the economic impacts of the war. In the clip, Warren mentioned that he was finding it harder — and more expensive — to find spare parts for his bike because the manufacturing plant is 'located in Ukraine.' Still, the Russian reporters quickly seized on Warren's remarks by making him the star of a news report about the economic fallout of sanctions and the war in general. President Vladimir Putin gifted an Alaskan man a new motorcycle after he'd briefly complained that US sanctions were making it increasingly more expensive to repair his current Soviet-era model. AP 'So for you, if they resolve this conflict here in Alaska, I mean Putin and Trump, it will be good?' the reporter asked Warren in the report. 'Yes, it will be good,' the local man replied. Days later, Warren told the Anchorage Daily News he received a phone call from one of the reporters claiming the news report had gone viral in Russia — and had even caught Putin's eye. Russian officials quickly promised him a new bike, which retails for roughly $22,000, but Warren insisted he initially brushed it off as a suspected scam given it all sounded 'bats–t crazy.' Less than 24 hours after Putin sat down with Trump, Warren said Russian embassy officials reached out to arrange for him to meet in the parking lot of the Anchorage motel where the Kremlin delegation had been staying. Footage of the gift handover, which was broadcast on Russian state media, showed Warren hopping aboard his new bike and taking it for a spin. 'It's night and day,' Warren said in the clip. 'I like my old one, but this one is obviously much better.' 'I'm speechless, it's amazing. Thank you very much.' Ural's original factory was founded in 1941 in what was then Soviet Russia but it is now headquartered in Washington state. The company, which noted all of its motorcycles are assembled in Kazakhstan, said it pulled its production out of Russia after Putin launched his invasion. While Russian media described the act as a gesture of goodwill to Americans, Warren was adamant he wasn't being used as a Putin propaganda tool. 'They're getting nothing from me,' he said. 'Nothing.' Warren also dismissed the backlash he has been getting for accepting the gift from the Russian strongman. 'I p—ed off all sorts of people,' he said. 'I took it. I could have not taken it, and probably p—ed off just as many people as doing that. I don't care.' 'It's a good bike,' he added. With Post wires
Fast Company
20 minutes ago
- Fast Company
Black beauty businesses are stuggling under Trump's tariffs
Earlier this summer, Dajiah Blackshear-Calloway, 34, started to notice that her regular clients weren't visiting her hair salon as often as they used to. The salon, in Smyrna, Georgia, houses two stylists and offers dozens of services that range from $50 natural hairstyles to $745 tape-in weave extensions. Her most popular services are $254 sew-ins, where human hair extensions are woven into braids, and $125 quick weaves, where human or synthetic hair is styled and then glued to a stocking cap. But the prices of hair extensions and hair glues used to create wigs and weaves have gone up exponentially after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a series of different tariffs on China and Vietnam, where the majority of Black beauty products are made. The price of a package of hair imported from Vietnam has gone up to $290 from $190 since May. A bottle of hair glue, imported from China, has gone up from $8 a bottle to $14.99 at her local beauty supply store. 'We're being impacted at every level,' Blackshear-Calloway said. 'I'm either having to eat that cost or pass that expense along to my clients, which affects their budgets and their pockets as well.' To avoid passing on rising costs, Blackshear-Calloway is asking her clients to bring their own hair to their appointments. Now her salon is offering a quick weave service without hair for $140, but with hair the price is $400, according to her booking website. She's also struggling to get products since her wholesaler is delaying shipments as tariff rates fluctuate. Kadidja Dosso, 30, owner of Dosso Beauty, which sells hypoallergenic braiding hair, as well as The Dosso Hair Salon in Philadelphia, has also faced delayed shipments on imports from China. She waited over a month to get $50,000 worth of China-made braiding hair via air freight at John F. Kennedy Airport in June, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced 145% tariffs on the country over confusion over what tariff should apply. 'We have to provide more specifics of the products – exact materials, the product use – for it to clear customs,' Dosso said. 'Part of the issue was that the same language that we've been using for years wasn't descriptive enough.' She wants to avoid raising prices on her $13 packets of hair, which customers typically buy at least five at a time to complete one hairstyle. Higher costs Tariffs are disproportionately impacting Black business owners like Blackshear-Calloway and Dosso, said Andre Perry, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. 'Many Black entrepreneurs started off with less wealth,' Perry said. He said that the wealth gap puts Black entrepreneurs, especially those in low-margin businesses like consumer goods or hair care services, into precarious financial positions as tariffs eat into their bottom lines. Sina Golara, an assistant professor of supply chain and operations management at Georgia State University, said rising costs due to tariffs are 'like a tax that you're imposing on business.' 'In some cases, it could be borne by the foreign manufacturer, but in most cases, it will also have quite a substantial impact on the domestic buyers and consumers,' Golara said. Diann Valentine, 55, founder of Slayyy Hair, first felt the impact of tariffs shortly after the initial 145% tariff was imposed on China and she faced a $300,000 bill to get 26,000 units of braiding hair out of the Los Angeles port in May. 'To lose that kind of money at this stage has been devastating,' Valentine said. Since then she has raised the price of her braiding hair and drawstring ponytail extensions by 20%. She also laid off four employees and is working 16-hour days to compensate in her two Glow+Flow beauty supply stores in Inglewood and Hawthorne, California. Slayyy Hair supplies $8.49 nontoxic braiding hair and $35.99 synthetic drawstring ponytails to TJ Maxx and Marshalls, which have resisted renegotiating prices or delivery deadlines to compensate. 'So essentially, we paid more for our ponytails than TJ Maxx and Marshalls paid for them,' Valentine said. She is also trying to renegotiate price increases with Target, where she sells in at least 70 stores in California, Nevada and Colorado, she said. TJ Maxx and Marshalls declined a Reuters request for comment. Fifty percent of the merchandise comes from China, Valentine said, and prices for synthetic wigs, human-hair weaves, plastic hair rollers, rubber bands, combs and brushes that stock her shelves are trending up at her beauty supply locations. 'I thought maybe we would see an increase in foot traffic because there would be more DIY hairstyles – more women doing their hair at home,' she said. 'But for right now, we've only seen decreased foot traffic and also a decrease in frequency of visits from our existing customers.' Struggling salons While beauty product sales are typically resilient during economic downturns, beauty services are seen as discretionary, said Marley Brocker, senior analyst at market research firm IBISWorld. 'Tariffs on those imports are going to directly lead to higher costs for those service providers, whether they're buying directly from overseas manufacturers or buying from wholesalers within the U.S.,' she said. Black U.S. consumers spent approximately $2.29 billion on hair care products in 2022, according to a NielsenIQ study from that year. But higher prices are causing some Black women to visit the salon less frequently. Deiara Frye, 27, of Raleigh, North Carolina, usually schedules hair appointments at least five times a year, but so far this year she's only gone once. 'Due to the cost of everything rising over the years, I tend to get braids a little more often now than sew-ins, or try to maintain my natural hair,' she said. She's also seeing prices for her natural hair products like Unilever's Shea Moisture and Procter & Gamble's Pantene go up. Fewer visits are impacting salons and beauty supply stores. Until earlier this year, Dionne Maxwell was selling wigs, braiding hair, shampoos, and conditioners out of her mini beauty supply store in Dallas, Georgia, located 33 miles outside of Atlanta, but she shut it down after she started losing foot traffic in May and moved operations into her home. Now she's relying on orders placed through Uber Eats, TikTok Shop and to sustain her business, but even those sales have slowed significantly, she said. 'We don't have the money for advertising, because enough revenue is not coming in to advertise with,' Maxwell said. Tariffs have raised Maxwell's wholesale price for China-made braiding hair by 50 cents per pack, she said, and she is now required to buy more hair in her wholesale orders. She said she's struggled to negotiate better prices with her hair wholesalers, who are requiring her to order more units of merchandise at higher costs. Her wholesaler is asking her to purchase 110 packs of hair per order, when she was previously able to buy 30 packs at a time, she said. 'For the past two months, we have been basically paying our bills out of pocket because we really have had nothing coming in,' Maxwell said.
The Verge
21 minutes ago
- The Verge
Apple is reportedly making more of its new iPhones in India instead of China
Apple is manufacturing more of its iPhone 17 phones for the US in India instead of in China, and for the first time, the full lineup of new models will ship from India at launch, according to Bloomberg. The company is also working on a successor to the iPhone 16E that it plans to make in India, Bloomberg says. Apple has increasingly been moving iPhone production to India to reduce its dependence on manufacturing in China. The company already expects to pay $1.1 billion in tariffs for the current quarter, but Bloomberg reports that currently, Apple's exports of iPhones to the US from India are exempted from tariffs. That's despite the Trump administration's 50 percent tariff on many imports from India, and while analyst Patrick Moorhead move 'does dodge some tariffs,' he noted that iPhone subassemblies are still mostly produced in China then shipped to India for final assembly. Earlier this month, Apple announced a $100 billion investment in US manufacturing that builds on the $500 billion it announced earlier this year. Trump has claimed that companies committed to building products in the US would be exempt from future tariffs on imported chips. However, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Tuesday morning that the administration plans to increase tariffs on India, saying it's a result of the country buying and selling Russian oil despite sanctions from the war in Ukraine. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Jay Peters Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Apple Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Tech
