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In 2018, after imposing steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, Donald Trump famously tweeted, Trade wars are good, and easy to win. Trumps time out of the White House has not changed his mind on that subject. Since his inauguration last month, he has set about remaking American trade policy even more dramatically than he did in his first term. Two weeks ago, he imposed across-the-board tariffs against Mexico, Canada, and China, and though he paused the tariffs on Mexico and Canada, theyre still scheduled to go into effect on March 4. This week, he once again imposed heavy tariffs on steel and aluminum imports (those will go into effect on March 12), and while in 2018 he had excluded imports from certain countries from the duties, this time around hes putting the steel and aluminum tariffs on imports from every country in the world. Finally, on Thursday, Trump rolled out a whole new set of import taxes, putting in place a system of reciprocal tariffswhatever the tariff a country imposes on U.S. imports of a product, the U.S. will now impose on imports of that product from that country. These moves arent surprisingTrump loves few things the way he loves tariffs, and appears wholly unconcerned about the fact that tariffs raise prices for both U.S. businesses and U.S. consumers. (As he put it earlier this month, We may have, in the short term, a little pain, and people understand that.) But what is striking, though little-noticed, is that Trump has been able to impose these tariffs unilaterally. Not only has he not consulted with Congress, but he hasnt even had the office of the U.S. Trade Representative make a case for why the tariffs were necessary. In effect, hes raising taxes on imports because he feels like it. Tariff loopholes This isnt something the people who wrote the Constitution ever envisioned happening. In fact, the Constitution does not give the president the power to impose tariffs or make trade policy. Instead, it explicitly gives those powers to Congress alone, awarding it the authority to set duties and imposts (taxes on foreign goods) and to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations. But Trump isnt getting Congress to pass laws imposing these tariffs on foreign importshes doing it by executive order, acting entirely on his own. How is Trump able to do this? By taking advantage of massive loopholes that Congress has created over the past 60 years, delegating much of its power over trade to the president, while taking very little care to limit what the president can do with that power. Trumps legal justification for his steel and aluminum tariffs, for instance, is Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the president to impose tariffs as high as he wants on specific industries, as long as the Department of Commerce determines that imports in those industries are a threat to national security (a term the law does not define). He justified his across-the-board tariffs on Canada and Mexico by declaring illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling a national emergency, and then invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, which gives him the power to impose tariffs during, yes, a national emergency. As for his reciprocal-tariff scheme, Trump will likely rely on Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, which allows the president, through the U.S. Trade Representative, to impose tariffs in response to any act, policy, or practice of a foreign country that the USTR finds is unjustifiable or unreasonable (terms the law, again, does not define). A ‘national emergency’ The problem with all of these laws is that the language they use is so vague and ill-defined that they effectively enable the president to do pretty much whatever he wants whenever he wants. Trumps justifications for his policies are in many cases self-evidently ridiculous: Imports of steel from Canada or Australia, for instance, obviously do not threaten American national security, nor is the vanishingly small amount of fentanyl smuggled over the Canadian border every year a national emergency. But federal courts historically have been uninterested in overriding the presidents judgment about what constitutes a national-security threat, or an unjustifiable trade practice, and as a result have basically given the president free rein over trade policy. That has not been a huge problem in the past because presidents have only rarely chosen to impose tariffs unilaterally. When George W. Bush imposed steel tariffs in 2002, for instance, it caused considerable controversy, simply because that kind of action was so unusual. And before Trump, the national security exemption for tariffs had been used primarily to ban oil imports from countries like Iran and Libya (which quite plausibly did pose a threat to national security). Even when presidents did invoke Section 301, it was typically used to negotiate trade settlements through the World Trade Organization. Trump, though, loves tariffs more than any president in recent memory, and is no respecter of norms. So, he has happily exploited the loopholes Congress has left open, creating the situation of permanent uncertainty U.S. businesses and consumers find themselves in today, where we literally do not know if well wake up tomorrow to find a whole new round of import taxes imposed on the stuff we buy. Congress could, of course, fix this problem overnight by simply repealing the laws that have outsourced so much responsibility over trade to the president. The Constitution puts trade policy in Congresss hands for a good reason: Imposing tariffs is almost never something that needs to be done urgently and, like all tax increases, it can and should be done legislatively. Unfortunately, theres been no real support from either party in Congress for the idea of taking back power over trade from the White House. Last fall, Senator Rand Paul did offer a such a bill, one that would have required Congress to approve any tariffs the president wanted to impose. But it went nowhere. Now with Republicanswho, aside from the rare rebel like Paul, have no interest in challenging Trump on his pet issuein charge of both the Senate and the House, theres very little chance of Congress doing anything anytime soon. So we better get used to Trump Imposes New Tariffs headlines: There are going to be a lot of them over the next few years.
Category:
E-Commerce
Jeff Bezos once said, “I like to wander.” That may seem counterintuitive in a business world obsessed with speed, but in a relentless pursuit of momentum, many leaders forget that speed without reflection leads to burnout, inefficiency, and poor decision-making. A report by Asana revealed that nearly 70% of executives say burnout has affected their decision-making ability. The paradox is clear: The faster we try to move without reflection, the more we risk burnout, inefficiency, and short-sighted decision-making. Leaders often mistake pausing for procrastination. However, the reality is that strategic pausing is a high-performance leadership move that separates reactionary decision-makers from visionary leaders. Its not about slowing down indefinitely; its about creating intentional space for recalibration so that when we do move forward, we do so with clarity, focus, and impact. The high cost of constant acceleration We live in an era where agility and rapid execution are prized above all else. But speed without strategy is like driving a high-performance car without brakes; eventually, you crash. Consider what happens when leaders dont pause: Burnout skyrockets: More than 75% of employees experience burnout, and leaders arent immune. Urgency breeds exhaustion. Decisions suffer: Without pauses, leaders react instead of strategizingleading to short-term fixes, not long-term solutions. Innovation stalls: Breakthroughs dont come from busyness. They emerge from reflection, setbacks, and unexpected insights. When leaders dont pause, they burn out, make poor decisions, and stifle innovation. But what if the very thing we fearslowing downis actually the secret weapon for sustainable success? Science backs this up. The science behind slowing down Neuroscience supports the idea that structured reflection enhances cognitive performance and decision-making. Harvard Business School research has shown that leaders who regularly engage in structured reflection improve their productivity and performance by 23%. There are two critical ways slowing down improves leadership effectiveness: It activates diffuse mode thinking. When we take breaks from active problem-solving, our brains process information in the background, leading to creative insights and better solutions. It improves emotional intelligence. Leaders who pause before reacting better navigate difficult conversations, manage conflict, and lead with empathykey traits that drive engagement and retention. Jeff Bezos famously introduced the “Day One” mindset at Amazon, a philosophy that ensures the company never becomes complacent. While Amazon is known for rapid execution, its leadership regularly pauses to reassess its strategic direction. Bezos would take time away from operations to think long-term, a practice that helped Amazon evolve from an online bookstore into a global tech giant. I once worked with a biotech leader whose team was stuck in a cycle of continuous problem-solving, trying to rush a product to market. I encouraged them to step back and ask, “What are we missing?” That moment of intentional pausing led to a breakthrough that fundamentally changed the companys approach and resulted in a novel strategy no one had anticipated. The ‘Slow down to speed up’ framework for leaders How can leaders implement this strategy in their own organizations? Heres a practical framework: Pause with purpose: Book a 30-minute “strategy pause” into your weekly calendar. Treat it like a non-negotiable meeting. Ask better questions: Start your next leadership meeting with a single, high-quality question that shifts the teams thinking: What are we missing? Are we solving the right problem? Whats the long-term impact of this decision? Create space for strategic thinking: Encourage teams to step away from constant execution. Googles 20% Time policy, which allows employees to spend a portion of their workweek exploring new ideas, has led to some of the companys most successful innovations, including Gmail and Google Maps. Embrace rest as a performance strategy: Elite athletes know that recovery is as important as trainingthe same applies to leadership. Leaders who take intentional breaks return with sharper insights and renewed energy. Foster a culture of reflection: Implement a 10-minute debrief ritual after major milestones to extract key lessons. Encourage teams to analyze what worked, what didnt, and what could be improved. Sustainable success isnt about moving the fastest; its about moving with the greatest clarity. The leaders who make space for strategic pauses arent the ones who fall behindtheyre the ones who set the pace for everyone else. Before your next big decision, ask yourself: Am I moving fast just for the sake of moving? Or am I creating the space to move forward with clarity? The difference could define your leadership and your legacy.
Category:
E-Commerce
ByteDances TikTok and CapCut apps are back in the Apple and Google app stores after having been absent from both for nearly a month. And in a sign of just how popular both apps are, both apps have rocketed up the App Store charts. Heres what you need to know about their returnand why you might want to download them again while you can. TikTok quickly becomes most downloaded app Yesterday evening, numerous ByteDance-owned apps unexpectedly returned to the Apple and Google app stores after being absent for nearly a month. This includes TikTok and the video editing app CapCut. Both were removed from Apples and Googles app stores on January 18, just hours before a U.S. ban on the distribution of ByteDances apps came into force on January 19. Within hours of the apps’ return, they quickly shot to the top of Apples App Store charts. As of the time of this writing, TikTok is the No. 1 most downloaded app on the App Store, while ByteDances popular video editor, CapCut, which many TikTok creators rely on to edit their videos, is currently the fourth most downloaded app on the Apple App Store. While both apps are also back on the Google Play store, neither are yet in the top 25 most downloaded free apps chart, according to data from SensorTower. A possible reason for TikToks absence from the Google Play chartsdespite its No. 1 position on Apples chartsmay be because Android users have been able to sideload the app on Android phones since last week. Regardless, both TikTok’s and CapCut’s positions on Apples App Store charts exemplify just how popular the apps are with the general public despite the national security concerns the U.S. government harbors about them and parent company ByteDance. Why are TikTok and CapCut back in the app stores? When President Donald Trump returned to office, one of the first executive orders he signed was an order pausing the TikTok ban. Trump halted the banwhich came into effect the day before he took officeby 75 days in order to give his administration an opportunity to determine the appropriate course forward in an orderly way that protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans. But while Trump paused the ban, ByteDances apps did not return to the Apple and Google app stores. One of the main reasons for this is that some legal experts were uncertain about whether or not Trumps administration actually had the power to pause the ban. If it was found the administration did not, and Apple and Google had returned to hosting ByteDances apps on the platforms, both tech companies could have been liable for billions of dollars in fines under the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the bill passed in April 2024 that authorized the ban. So, whats changed? Apple and Google received a letter from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that assured the companies that the ban wouldnt be enforced immediately, according to a report from Bloomberg. This letter was apparently enough for both tech companies to feel that they are no longer at risk of finesfor the time beingif they once again host the apps on their app stores. You might want to download TikTok and CapCut soon Its important to note that despite the assurances Apple and Google received, and despite TikTok and CapCut being once again available on the app stores, the TikTok ban has not gone away. Right now, its just paused. That pause lasts until the first week in April. If a new deal acceptable to lawmakers and ByteDance is not reached by then, then the TikTok ban will go back into effect unless Congress repeals or alters the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. What this means is that, come early April, you may once again no longer be able to download TikTok, CapCut, and other ByteDance apps. So you might want to do it now while you still have the chanceunless, that is, you’re fine with dropping thousands of dollars on an eBayed smartphone.
Category:
E-Commerce
Reflecting on her astronomic career rise, one of the leaders I coached once noted, I have always done better when my direct line manager was basically absentalternatively, they were mostly a barrier to my career advancement. She is not alone. At most companies, there are at least some managers who depend on their direct reports so muchnot least because they are actually doing their workthat they end up holding them hostage from moving up. There are also plenty of examples where the same talented employees transition from enjoying star treatment and executive sponsorship to becoming the very target of their line managers, who feel threatened by and jealous of their success, which they are eager to block. This goes beyond the anecdotal, as many scientific studies provide consistent evidence to explain why bosses are often the exact opposite of a champion, mentor, or sponsor to their direct reports, even when their sabotaging and boycotting goes undetected. Reason 1: Your boss doesnt want to let go of a high-performing employee As I found in my book The Talent Delusion, any manager who measures team productivity or collective output reliably will find that a vital few individuals in their team account for a disproportionately high chunk of the output. Just like its essential that they keep such individuals engaged, which may include giving them the star treatment, it is important that they retain them. But, ironically, being part of the vital few also makes you a high potential for the next career level and promotion, which will probably handicap their existing teams, and reduce the accomplishments of their existing manager.Unsurprisingly, research shows that one of the main reasons bosses become blockers of their reports career progression is their unwillingness to sacrifice or compromise their own team (and in turn individual) performance for the good of the employee or the organization. Reason 2: Your boss is blocking your career advancement as a part of office politics At times, career blocking may just be the product of wider organizational politics. For instance, even if your boss doesnt mind losing you despite the fact that they see you as one of the key members of their team, you may be hit by friendly fire if your boss is in a turf war with your potential new manager: think of it as your current and potential future boss fighting over an asset (you), not because they necessarily care about that asset, but because they are locking horns in a battle for power, influence, resources, and status. Its a bit like if you are leaving your husband or wife for someone elseusually a painful event for thembut that someone happens to be their nemesis or archenemyan unbearable provocation. Reason 3: Your boss is waiting for retirement Other times, managerial blocking may be due neither to fears of losing a star performer or vicious organizational politics, but simply due to existing retirement cycles, coupled with an unwillingness to distinguish between tenure and performance, not to mention potential. In other words, most people get stuck because their boss is waiting to retire, even if they have more or less retired from their current duties and role, albeit informally. As Max Planck, describing this in the context of academia, noted that science progressed one funeral at the time. To be sure, many tenured and senior leaders (and employees) are among the top performers in an organization, so there are many arguments to keep them for a long time, even before they reach minimum retirement age. That said, they may still be blocking or delaying up-and-coming employees from gaining a well-deserved career progression, which may risk losing them to other organizations, including their competitors. Reason 4: Your boss isnt willing to fight for you Managers may not be deliberately blocking their employees career advancement, and yet passively contributing to their stagnation. As we know, identifying high-potential employees, which includes the selection of potential future leaders and executives in the most successful organizations in the world isnt a science, but a mix of science and intuition.The intuition part includes the politics of championing and sponsoring people, especially when they report to you. It may well be that your boss likes you, values you, and has no objection to your advancement; however, they may decide it’s not really necessary for them to fight the heated battle for having ones own team members promoted ahead of those of your peers. While other bosses may actively campaign for their employees to be promoted, your boss may think that your achievements should speak for themselves, and that in a normal and rational culture, leaders should be able to make evidence-based decisions on career progression, rather than base it on popularity vote or who has the loudest and most powerful champion or sponsor. Sadly, your boss may be rightlogically and ethicallybut you will nonetheless lose out to some peers who are endorsed by politically active and powerful bosses. Reason 5: Your boss is a narcissist A final reason may be sheer narcissism, particularly vulnerable or insecure narcissism, which is not uncommon among bosses. Interestingly, narcissism may propel bosses to hire people who are just like themselves, and also designate them as successors: look at this brilliantly talented employee I brought into my team, they are amazingoh and they look much like myself. However, when those very bosses feel a competitive threat from those employees, or that more attention is on them than on themselves, they may get defensive and decide to retaliate. Imagine, for example, a manager and a right-hand employee who in some ways resembleat least from a personality perspectiveDonald Trump and Elon Musk; regardless of what you make of their talents, you can see how such romances may be short-lived, and how the amazing highs may be followed by incredible lows. Perhaps it is useful to remember that leadershipthe art of influencing others so they can collaborate effectively and form a high-performing teamis not just about impacting the people who formally report to you, but also your peers and bosses. So, just like we would expect a good boss to avoid the traps discussed above, we would also expect talented and high potential employees to be astute and politically skilled enough to persuade their own bosses to let them go, especially when that is likely to contribute not just to their own personal career success, but also the success of the organization. Managing up, then, ought to include persuading your boss to not be a barrier.
Category:
E-Commerce
Social media has a reputation for capturing ephemeral thoughts and images, but around the world, people are using Facebook for a different purpose, setting up groups to record and share images and memories of the past. Facebook history groups and pages have popped up in major cities like New York and Seattle and in small towns and suburbs across the U.S. Other groups focus on the histories of hobbies and interests from ham radio to cooking to punk rock, but geographical groups in particular often collect unique information that may not be found anywhere else on the internet. Members share personal photos, family stories, and ephemera tied to places in their hometowns from former schools to businesses that have changed hands. “There’ll be a corner store, and we have one name for it, and then people remember all of the owners over time,” says John Marks, curator of collections and exhibits at Historic Geneva, a museum in Geneva, New York, that operates a Facebook page with frequent historic discussions. Historic Geneva frequently digitizes and posts photos from its collection of tens of thousands, and residents chime in with their own memories of bars, church groups, neighborhoods, and businesses, sometimes connecting with former neighbors in comment sections or following up with Historic Geneva to share details or artifacts with the museum. “Say I post a picture of a factory that was here, and they say, ‘you know, my mom worked there, and I have X, Y and Z from that factory,'” Marks says. “I’ll reply to the post and say if you ever want to donate it, we’d love to have you give me a call.” Marks says he typically spends a few hours a month preparing and scheduling posts, researching what the museum knows about particular images to caption them as best as possible. He’ll also try to record information Facebook users share about what he posts if it seems reliable, like the names of former owners of a business. And while some history pages are run by professional historians or museum workers like Marks, many others are run by amateurs who essentially volunteer their time to moderate posts, removing spam and other unwanted content like political arguments from groups that in some cases have hundreds of thousands of members. “It never stops,” says Mike McGinness, who founded a Florida history group that now has more than 300,000 members and 75,000 photos. “It’s a full-time job, just keeping the group civil, and keeping the group on track as to what our focus is.” Photos posted in the group have helped old friends and even family members reconnect, he says, and well-captioned posts can be searched by users looking to find information about particular buildings or addresses. And about three years ago, McGinness and his co-admin Jeff Davies were contacted by publisher McIntyre Purcell, which led to a coffee table-style book of historic photos of Florida they’ve since promoted at bookstores, houses of worship, universities, and festivals up and down the Sunshine State. “We’ve been, you know, promoting not even necessarily the book, but the Facebook group, and our brand of preserving Florida history,” says Davies. “It’s always good to sell a book, but it’s also good to preserve history, so 20, 30, or 40 years from now, if someone’s driving down the street anywhere in Florida and they look at a building, they could see what was there before.” ‘It’s really hard to get a hold of any support from Facebook’ Most Facebook history groups are probably run by inspired amateurs like McGinness and Davies, not professional historians, says Mark Tebeau, an associate professor at Arizona State University’s School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies and the coauthor of the Handbook of Digital Public History. And they help connect members with historical memories and materials in a way that local historical societies and museums might struggle to do, since they have limited budgets and space to archive and exhibit community materials at scale. The trouble is, Tebeau says, Facebook itself isn’t designed to be a historical archive. It’s not necessarily easy to browse or search material posted to Facebook groups, unless captions match search terms fairly precisely, and the lack of public APIs make it difficult for researchers to systematically access material stored on the site. “These kinds of channels are not interested in these kinds of open internet practices that would be required for archivists like me to actually harvest and gather material from local communities,” Tebeau says. Permissions and copyright issues can also make it difficult for professional historians to systematically archive or use material from Facebook, Tebeau says. It’s also not at all clear that Meta intends Facebook to be a long-term historical repository or what will become in the long run of one-of-a-kind photos and recollections shared exclusively on the site. “I think people mistakenly think Facebook is forever, and it’s not,” he says. Meta didn’t respond to inquiries from Fast Company. But it’s clear that moderators of history groups have challenges getting help from the company, as is common with services from Meta and other big tech companies. “It’s really hard to get a hold of any support from Facebook,” McGinness says. “We’ve had quite a few glitches happen with our group, and we’ve tried to communicate with them, and it’s very difficult.” He and Davies try to control who’s admitted to the group, weeding out obviously suspicious users with new accounts and no ties to Florida, and using moderation tools to flag posts with vulgarity and removing offenders, but McGinness says spammers do sometimes manage to slip into the group through means unknown. “Mike and I have spent hours and hours going through members, trying to remove the ones that have slipped in,” he says. And at the same time, bogus Florida history groups have popped up, sometimes using photos taken without attribution from their group, which they post intermixed with spam, Davies says. Other history groups and pages have struggled with cybersecurity issues, sometimes losing control of their groups to hackers. A Seattle group was hijacked last year, and, according to news reports, the administrators struggled to get the attention of Facebook or law enforcement until someone offered to connect them with a Meta employee, who was able to help restore access. The group admins didn’t respond to inquiries from Fast Company. A Facebook page belonging to the Illinois State Historical Society, which has been active on the site for about 15 or 20 years, was similarly hacked last year, says executive director William Furry. The page had promoted historical content, events, and anniversaries from around the state, including promoting news from other historical societies in the state with limited resources for advertising. The historical society also saw some of its own content go viral, with plenty of comments from readers, including posts about the Radium Girls poisoned on the job in the early 20th century as they painted glow-in-the-dark clocks with the radioactive element. But when the hackers took over, they shortened the page name, removing mention of Illinois, and started posting a flood of Star Wars trivia and memes. “The good news is it wasn’t worse than that,” Furry says. The hijacked page is now operated as Star Wars Society, albeit with a link to the historical society website and Furry’s email address still posted. And while the real historical society has since started a new page, it hasn’t regained a full complement of followers. There’s some stigma to being hacked, with followers potentially concerned they’ll be more vulnerable by association, Furry says. And the group never regained access to its old content, though Furry says he considered everything posted on the page to be “ephemeral” to begin with, serving a purpose of bringing historical information to those who see it. “What I want to emphasize is that the problem for me is that there is no help from the Meta organization to stop this sort of thing,” he says. “It’s all on the victim for trying to resolve the problem, and there’s no effort on the part of Meta to go after the perpetrators.” In general, even without security issues, Facebook history groups and pages tend, like other online forums, to rely on a degree of volunteer admin work that may not be obvious to casual visitors and posters. “It’s a labor of love,” says Rebecca Heimbuck, who spends a couple of hours a day administering the group “Billings, Montana As She Was & Is.” Heimbuck says she started the group partly to share her collection of historic postcards”you can sit and look at your own stuffwhat’s the fun in that?” she saysand partly to help dispel a notion that Billings is less historically interesting than other Montana cities. She made an effort to add detailed captions about the images she’d post, and she’s seen a steady stream of other people join to share their own memories and snapshots of Billings, adding more than 22,000 members in about three years. “So, as long as there’s an interest and as long as people like it, I hope to keep it up as long as I can,” she says.
Category:
E-Commerce
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