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Toy robots that teach children to code. Sneakers made in America. Mold-resistant kitchen gadgets.The three items are among new products that have gotten stuck in the pipeline due to President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policies, according to the brand founders behind the stalled items. They say that instead of fostering U.S. innovation, Trump’s tariffs are stifling it with extra costs and unexpected work.At Learning Resources in Vernon Hills, Illinois, Made Plus in Annapolis, Maryland, and Dorai Home in Salt Lake City, research and development have taken a backseat to recalculating budgets, negotiating with vendors, and tracking shipments in the shifting tariff environment.“If we don’t have enough cash to cover just the restocks of the things that we know we need, do we want to take a risk on this new thing when we don’t know how well it will sell yet?” Dorai Home founder Kelsey O’Callaghan said.O’Callaghan started the eco-friendly home goods company with a stone bath mat and now offers about 50 kitchen and bathroom accessories, which are made in China with a non-toxic material that dries quickly. New launches are critical to increasing sales and attracting customers, she said.As Trump increased the tariff on Chinese goods to 20% and as high as 145% before reducing the import tax rate to 30% for 90 days, Dorai Home postponed introducing new merchandise. O’Callaghan said she had to lay off the CEO as well as the head of product development, who helped the company jump on new trends.“I haven’t really put the time or the emphasis on (innovation) because I’m covering too many other people’s roles,” she said.The company paused shipments from China in early April but resumed some on a staggered basis after the president’s rate reduction. On Wednesday, Trump touted progress in U.S.-China trade talks.With details still sketchy and a deal not finalized, entrepreneurs interviewed by The Associated Press said they viewed the tariffs war as an ongoing threat. Tariffs and American innovation The potential stunting of innovation follows an economic slowdown during the coronavirus pandemic, when companies also had to put projects on hold. Some experts think the on-again-off again tariffs may have more enduring consequences because they rewire markets and upend business strategies.“When executive attention shifts from innovation to regulatory compliance, the innovation pipeline suffers. Companies end up optimizing for the political landscape rather than technological advancement,” economists J. Bradford Jensen, a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Scott J. Wallsten, president of the Technology Policy Institute think tank, wrote in an April blog post.Trump has argued that curtailing foreign imports with tariffs would help revive the nation’s diminished manufacturing base. Analysts and various trade groups have warned that fractured trade ties and supply chains may depress R&D activity of U.S. tech and health care companies that rely on international partnerships or foreign suppliers.Small companies, which often drive the innovations that create jobs and economic growth, already are under strain.With fewer people on staff and tighter budgets compared to large corporations, entrepreneurs say they are spending more time on cutting costs, suspending or arranging orders, and deciding how much of their tariff-related costs to charge customers. That means they’re spending less time thinking of their next big ideas.Schylling Inc., a Massachusetts company that produces modern versions of Lava lamps, Sea-Monkeys, My Little Pony and other nostalgic toys, has its products made in China. As part of its strategy to account for tariffs, the company put a group of employees on temporary unpaid leave last month to reduce expenses.Marketing director Beth Muehlenkamp said she and other furloughed workers typically would have been planning products for the final months of 2026. But Schylling isn’t focusing on designing new products given the unstable trade outlook.“It’s really hard to focus on innovation and creativity when you’re consumed with this day-to-day of how we’re just going to balance the books and deal with the changing rates,” Muehlenkamp said. An uneven product pipeline Even some companies that do their manufacturing in the U.S. are scaling back investments in new products. Made Plus, a Maryland company that makes athletic shoes at a small factory in the state capital, put a planned golf line on hold because two key componentsa foam insole and the tread for the bottom of the shoecurrently are made in China, founder Alan Guyan said.The company customizes its shoes on demand and charges $145 to $200 a pair. The footwear is made from recycled plastic bottles with advanced knitting, 3D printing and computerized stitching techniques. It’s looking into getting components from Vietnam instead of China.Embracing new technology is essential to restoring manufacturing capability in the U.S. and competing with Asia, Guyan said. But given ongoing trade frictions, he said he does not want to invest time or money evaluating the latest embroidery and knitting machines, which come from Germany, Italy, China and the U.S.“We’re just battening down the hatches a little bit and just hoping that there’s enough influence in the community of footwear that it will somewhat change and get resolved and we can move forward,” he said of the tariff roller coaster.In contrast, many big companies are forging on. Google parent Alphabet confirmed late last month that it still planned to spend $75 billion on capital expenditures this year, with most of the money going toward artificial intelligence technology. What’s next for R&D? Sonia Lapinsky, a managing director at consulting firm AlixPartners, has advised her clients to limit tariff discussions to a small group of executives and to keep their product creation cycles in motion.Businesses have an even greater imperative to come up with attention-grabbing innovations when consumers may be reluctant to open their wallets, she said.Yet smaller companies may struggle to wall off tariff discussions from the rest of the business.Learning Resources CEO Rick Woldenberg said that roughly 25% to 30% of the 350 employees at the educational toy company’s headquarters, including product developers, are working at least part-time on tariff-related tasks.The company usually develops 250 different products a year and expects to get half that many off the drawing board for 2026, Woldenberg said. While exploring factories in countries besides China, he said, Learning Resources is delaying the next generation of its interactive robots that help children develop computer programming skills through games and other activities.The family-run business and Woldenberg’s other toy business, hand2Mind, are locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration. Te jointly owned companies filed a lawsuit accusing the president of exceeding his authority by invoking an emergency powers law to impose tariffs.A federal judge ruled in favor of the two companies last month, and the administration has appealed the decision. Woldenberg said he’s ready to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.“It’s a win at the Supreme Court that we need,” he said. “And so until then, there will be no certainty. Even then, if the government is bound and determined to keep us in an uncertain situation, they’ll be able to do that.” Anne D’Innocenzio, AP Retail Writer
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E-Commerce
House Republicans are moving to cut about $9.4 billion in spending already approved by Congress as President Donald Trump’s administration looks to follow through on work by the Department of Government Efficiency when it was overseen by Elon Musk.The package to be voted on Thursday targets foreign aid programs and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides money for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, as well as thousands of public radio and television stations around the country.Republicans are characterizing the spending as wasteful and unnecessary, but Democrats say the rescissions are hurting the United States’ standing in the world.“Cruelty is the point,” Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said of the proposed spending cuts.The Trump administration is employing a tool rarely used in recent years that allows the president to transmit a request to Congress to cancel previously appropriated funds. That triggers a 45-day clock in which the funds are frozen pending congressional action. If Congress fails to act within that period, then the spending stands.The benefit for the administration of a formal rescissions request is that passage requires only a simple majority in the 100-member Senate instead of the 60 votes usually required to get spending bills through that chamber. So, if they stay united, Republicans will be able to pass the measure without any Democratic votes.The administration is likening the first rescissions package to a test case and says more could be on the way if Congress goes along.Republicans, sensitive to concerns that Trump’s sweeping tax and immigration bill would increase future federal deficits, are anxious to demonstrate spending discipline, though the cuts in the package amount to just a sliver of the spending approved by Congress each year. They are betting the cuts prove popular with constituents who align with Trump’s “America first” ideology as well as those who view NPR and PBS as having a liberal bias.In all, the package contains 21 proposed rescissions. Approval would claw back about $900 million from $10 billion that Congress has approved for global health programs. That includes canceling $500 million for activities related to infectious diseases and child and maternal health and another $400 million to address the global HIV epidemic.The Trump administration is also looking to cancel $800 million, or a quarter of the amount Congress approved, for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and sanitation, and family reunification for those forced to flee their own country.About 45% of the savings sought by the White House would come from two programs designed to boost the economies, democratic institutions and civil societies in developing countries.The Republican president has also asked lawmakers to rescind nearly $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which represents the full amount it’s slated to receive during the next two budget years. About two-thirds of the money gets distributed to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations. Nearly half of those stations serve rural areas of the country.The association representing local public television stations warns that many of them would be forced to close if the Republican measure passes. Those stations provide emergency alerts, free educational programming and high school sports coverage and highlight hometown heroes.Advocacy groups that serve the world’s poorest people are also sounding the alarm and urging lawmakers to vote no.“We are already seeing women, children and families left without food, clean water and critical services after earlier aid cuts, and aid organizations can barely keep up with rising needs,” said Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, a poverty-fighting organization.Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said the foreign aid is a tool that prevents conflict and promotes stability but the measure before the House takes that tool away.“These cuts will lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, devastating the most vulnerable in the world,” McGovern said. “And at a time when China and Russia and Iran are working overtime to challenge American influence.”Republicans disparaged the foreign aid spending and sought to link it to programs they said DOGE had uncovered.Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said taxpayer dollars had gone to such things as targeting climate change, promoting pottery classes and strengthening diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Other Republicans cited similar examples they said DOGE had revealed.“Yet, my friends on the other side of the aisle would like you to believe, seriously, that if you don’t use your taxpayer dollars to fund this absurd list of projects and thousands of others I didn’t even list, that somehow people will die and our global standing in the world will crumble,” Roy said. “Well, let’s just reject this now.” Kevin Freking, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Bravo, the network that houses franchises like The Real Housewives, Vanderpump Rules, and Top Chef, has become a reality TV juggernaut. Started as an arts and culture cable channel, unscripted television was always at the network’s heart, but after a little show called Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the network leaned into reality, with a focus on surfacing its own talent. Now it’s a strong asset for NBCUniversal, which is hanging onto the network as parent company Comcast spins off properties like E!, Oxygen True Crime, Syfy, CNBC, and MSNBC into a new company, Versant. Despite a period in 2023 when The Real Housewives of New York City (RHONY) star Bethenny Frankel suggested Bravo talent unionize for better treatmentand two ongoing lawsuits from other cast members about their treatment on setBravo is booming. As NBCUniversal spins out Versant, Bravo will play a big role in the company’s streaming strategy with Peacock, where Bravo fans constitute a low-churn, high-volume audience. Frances Berwick, chair of Bravo and Peacock Unscripted, appeared on Fast Company‘s Most Innovative Companies podcast to talk about about creating franchises audiences love, keeping them fresh, and why the network waits until a new Housewives season ends before picking up the cameras again. From left: Jeff Lewis, Frances Berwick, Andy Cohen [Photo: Todd Williamson/Bravo] What led you to identify unscripted reality TV as the key to Bravo’s kind of transformation from a niche arts network to the juggernaut it is today? When I first joined the network, we didn’t have any ads. We had largely acquired movies and arts programming. We realized that the way to get into the commercial environment would be to produce original content. Unscripted was the way to go. We started doing series with people like Michael Moore who [did a show called] The Awful Truth. It was funny and provocative. From there we segued into other types of documentaries. We did a very intense interview show with Errol Morris. Then from there, the producers of the Errol Morris show pitched us this fabulous concept called Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. It was food, fashion, beauty, design, and pop culture. We felt like this was the modern representation of the arts. Because of the success of Queer Eyeit really was a hit right out of the gateit allowed us to then invest in doing more. We rapidly started to grow. [Our programming] in those days still had to appeal to our very educated audience and be culturally grounded and in the zeitgeist. We picked up Project Greenlight when it was canceled by HBO, we picked up Project Runway, we came up with Top Chef. We did a bit of celebrity poker along the way which was really fun, too. We morphed from there into shows like Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. So we dabbled a bit in celebrity. But more than anything, we found that we actually did better if we found our own personalities, if we found interesting people with interesting stories. Then came The Real Housewives of Orange County and it snowballed. I love that you traced a line from Errol Morris to Queer Eye. What were some of the early risks or bets that paid off? Project Runway was one of them. When we launched it was a very tiny show. We took some really big bets with that. We had aired about three episodes and it was not really hitting. [But] we knew that there was a bigger audience for it because we had seen the explosion that we’d had when Queer Eye was at its height. So we took the holiday period and we just blasted the entire network. I think we had a marathon of the three episodes of Project Runway almost incessantly for about 10 days around Christmas and New Year. Viewership doubled the next week. [We succeeded through] word of mouth and sheer grit. Then it just kept growing. We knew we had something that was really good and we believed in it. I will say the same with Queer Eye. We put the entire marketing budget for the year on that one show. We loved the pilot and it tested very well. and We didn’t have much in the way of resources, and so it was go big or go home and it worked. [Photo: Charles Sykes/Bravo] How do you approach building franchises, like the Real Housewives series? It happened by accident. We didn’t launch Real Housewives of Orange County and think let’s franchise this. We actually were developing a show called Manhattan Moms and that’s what we were pitched and during production we saw how successful Real Housewives of Orange County was. We had a whole internal debate about whether it was going to tarnish Orange County if we named Manhattan Moms Real Housewives of New York instead. We then had to persuade some of the cast that it was okay to be called Real Housewives because they weren’t all married. So that became the Real Housewives of New York. Then we were pitched another ensemble female cast in Atlanta that we really liked. It all started with organic groups of friends. It became franchised in a small period of time because we were doing all this casting around female ensembles. Below Deck’s Captain Sand Yawn at Bravocon, 2023. [Photo: Greg Doherty/Bravo] How do you keep long-running shows fresh? There are lessons that we’ve learned from the past where [we did] too much. Two or three years ago, we had five different Below Deck casts. We’ve scaled that back to three at any one time. That’s the right number. Then we are very careful about curating at what moment we should replace or bring in new cast members. That’s the beauty of a show like Real Housewiveswe can keep refreshing the cast. In some cases we’ll replace the whole cast, but that’s riskier. Then were constantly looking at different ways to tell stories. You’ll notice at some point we started doing much more flashbacks and flash forwards. What makes a good cast member? They have to be authentic and vulnerable and really be prepared to share their whole lives with people. Our fans are really passionate, and if they don’t feel that authenticity or if they feel that the cast members are holding things back, they’ll be quite vocal about it. Usually when we start taping a show, we throw away the first few days anyway, because you can then weed out anyone who’s playing for the camera. You want people’s real personalities to come through or the audience isn’t going to connect with them and buy into them. If we are not seeing that, we tend to minimize that person’s storyline. Andy [Cohen] pointed out recently that often on season two people will get the glow up. Theyll get botox after seeing themselves on screen. Social media is almost an extra cast member in these shows. How do you think about bringing it in? We now know we can’t tape an ongoing show while the current cycle is on the air. We have tried that and it gets confusing because the cast members start reacting to things that they see [online] and it becomes very meta. Often that can be a very tedious storyline. Bravo has a remarkable hit rate when it comes to finding and casting criminals. Why do you think that is? It really defies all logic that if you are engaged in criminal activity, you would want to go on television because you’re probably going to get worse ramifications and be made an example of. That is really the furthest thing that we want. It’s always a surprise and a disappointment. There’s a lot of instances that are controversial but not necessarily criminal. When do you know something is so controversial that a cast member needs to be let go? It really varies and there’s lots of gray area. If we’ve got a whole cast who won’t film with somebody, right, then you can’t bring them back. I will say people redeem themselves. We put people on television who are flawed, as we all are. But those flaws aren’t criminal. We want to give people a bit of grace in terms of getting some forgiveness and being able to move on. There is talent that we’ve had on the shows where they’ll have a bad season where they didn’t get on well with their cast members. Then, without changing their personality, they may then redeem themselves by other actions. There have been shows where a cast member clearly has an addiction problem. Is it responsible to keep them on air? There have been times when we’ve said to cast members we’re not going to film with them. We’re also much more careful on our productions with alcohol consumption than we were a few years ago. But often it will be their [fellow] cast members who will hold them accountable.
Category:
E-Commerce
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