White House says summit of American states will make progress despite boycotts by Mexican president and others over refusal to invite Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela
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At a lunch for Tony Award nominees last month, veteran theater producer Ron Simons looked around and smiled. It seemed appropriate that the gathering was held at The Rainbow Room. 

“I can guarantee you I have not seen this many people of color represented across all categories of the Tony Awards,” he recalled. “It was a diverse room. I was so uplifted and impressed by that.” 

For the first full season since the death of George Floyd reignited a conversation about race and representation in America, Broadway responded with one of its most diverse Tony slates yet. 

Multiple Black artists were nominated in every single performance category, including three of five featured actors in a musical, four of six featured actresses in a play, two of seven leading actors in a play and three of five leading actresses in a play. There are 16 Black performance nods out of 33 slots — a very healthy 48%. 

By comparison, at the 2016 Tonys — the breakout season that included the diverse “Hamilton,” “Eclipsed” and “The Color Purple” revival — 14 of the 40 acting nominees for plays and musicals or 35% were actors of color. 

“Let’s hope that the diversity that we saw in the season continues to be the norm for Broadway, that this isn’t just an anomaly or a blip in reaction to what we’ve been through, but just a reset,” said Lynn Nottage, the first writer to be nominated for both a play (“Clyde’s”) and musical (“MJ”) in a single season. 

The new crop of nominees also boasts more women and people of color in design categories, such as first-time nominees Palmer Hefferan for sound design of a play (“The Skin of Our Teeth”), Yi Zhao for lighting design of a play (“The Skin of Our Teeth”) and Sarafina Bush for costume design of a play (“for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf”). 

Other firsts this season included L Morgan Lee of “A Strange Loop” becoming the first out trans performer to be nominated for a Tony. Adam Rigg, scenic designer of “The Skin of Our Teeth,” became the first out agender (does not identify with a particular gender) designer nominated, and Toby Marlow, “Six” co-creator is the first out nonbinary composer-lyricist nominated. 

Eleven performers — including Jaquel Spivey from “A Strange Loop,” Myles Frost in “MJ” and Kara Young from “Clyde’s” — received a nod for their Broadway debut performances and 10 designers received nominations for their Broadway debuts, as did creators such as “A Strange Loop” playwright Michael R. Jackson and “Paradise Square” co-book writer Christina Anderson. 

“I’m very, very excited about all the new voices we’re hearing, all the new new writers who are represented on Broadway for the first time,” said A.J. Shively, an actor nominated for “Paradise Square.” “I really hope that trend continues.” 

Perhaps nowhere is the diversity more apparent than in the oldest play currently on Broadway. “Macbeth,” directed by Sam Gold, has a Black Lady Macbeth in Ruth Negga, a woman taking on a traditional male role (Amber Gray plays Banquo), a non-binary actor (Asia Kate Dillon) and disability representation (Michael Patrick Thornton). 

“If all the world’s a stage, our stage certainly is the world. I’m really proud to be up there with all the actors,” says Thornton, who uses his wheelchair as a cunning asset to play the savvy nobleman Lennox. 

But while representation was seen across Broadway this season so was an invisible virus that didn’t care. The various mutations of COVID-19 sickened actors in waves and starved many box offices of critical funds. Skittish theater-goers who returned often had an appetite for only established, comfort shows. 

Several of the Black-led productions came up short, including “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” “Chicken and Biscuits,” and “Pass Over.” They debuted in the fall, just as Broadway was slowly restarting and audiences were most fearful. “Thoughts of a Colored Man” closed early because it didn’t have enough healthy actors, at one point enlisting the playwright himself to get onstage and play a role. 

One of the most painful blows was a revival of Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls,” which struggled to find an audience. The cast of seven Black women included deaf actor Alexandria Wailes and, until recently, a pregnant Kenita R. Miller. It earned strong notices and a whopping seven Tony nominations. But it will close this week. 

“In past seasons, had there been a play with seven Tony nominations and this bevy of glowing reviews, the show would have gone on for quite a while,” says Simons, the lead producer. “There’s an audience for this show. That’s not the problem. The problem is getting the audience into the theater to see the show.” 

Despite a glut in inventory and not enough consumers, there were clear game-changers, like “A Strange Loop,” a musical about a gay Black playwright, that captured a leading 11 nominations, besting establishment options like a Hugh Jackman-led “The Music Man.” Broadway veterans agree that extraordinary storytelling was available for those hardy souls who bought tickets. 

“I’m really proud to be a part of one of the voices of Broadway this year,” said Anna D. Shapiro, who directed Tracy Letts’ Tony-nominated play “The Minutes,” which exposes delusions at the dark heart of American history. ” I am so impressed by the vitality and the dynamism.” 

Broadway data often suggest improvements one year, then a drop off the next. Take the 2013-14 season, which was rich with roles for African Americans, including “A Raisin in the Sun” starring Denzel Washington, Audra McDonald channeling Billie Holiday in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” and the dance show “After Midnight.” 

There were also African Americans in nontraditional roles, like James Monroe Iglehart as the Genie in “Aladdin,” Nikki M. James and Kyle Scatliffe in “Les Miserables,” and Norm Lewis becoming the first Black Phantom on Broadway in “The Phantom of the Opera.” 

That season, Black actors represented 21% of all roles. But the next season, the number fell to 9%. 

Camille A. Brown, who this season together with Lileana Blain-Cruz became only the second and third Black women to be nominated for best direction of a play, has weathered the ups and downs. 

“My thing is, let’s see what the next year and the year after that and the year after that look like?” she says. “I think the landscape was definitely a challenge, especially after George Floyd and the events that happened after that. But this is only the first season out after all of that stuff happened. So let’s see if it keeps going and keeps evolving and keeps progressing.” 

Simons is optimistic the gains this year will last and celebrates that, at the very least, a group of diverse actors got their Broadway credits this season. He predicts more Tony winners of color than ever before. 

“Even though the box office hurt all of our feelings, it really is a celebration because never have we seen this kind of diversity happen on Broadway,” he says. “It is a rare year and it is a rare year for both the good and the bad.” 
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Lebanon said on Monday it would invite a U.S. mediator to Beirut to continue negotiations over a disputed maritime boundary with Israel to prevent any escalation after accusing Israel of encroaching on contested waters.

The issue flared up on Sunday when a vessel operated by London-based Energean ENOG.L arrived off the coast to develop a gas field which Israel says is part of its exclusive economic zone but which Lebanon says falls within the contested waters.

In Israel’s first response to the Lebanese accusation, Energy Minister Karin Elharrar said on Monday the Lebanese account was “very far from reality.”

Lebanon’s president and caretaker prime minister agreed to invite U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein to discuss “completing the negotiations to demarcate the southern maritime border and to work on concluding the issue as fast as possible to prevent any escalation that would not serve the state of stability in the region,” caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on his Twitter feed.

He said Lebanon would contact major powers and the United Nations to affirm its position, confirming that any Israeli drilling or exploration in the disputed area would be “a provocation and an act of aggression” that threatens peace and security.

The United States began mediating indirect talks in 2020 to resolve the issue.

Energean said its floating production storage and offloading vessel arrived on Sunday at the Karish field, about 80 km (50 miles) west of the city of Haifa, and it plans to bring it online in the third quarter.

In a statement on Sunday, the Lebanese presidency said Lebanon had sent a letter to the United Nations in recent weeks stating that Karish falls within the disputed area.

Elharrar told Tel Aviv radio 103 FM there was “unequivocally no” encroachment by Israel.

Lebanon is home to the heavily armed, Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which has previously warned Israel against drilling in the disputed area until the issue is resolved, and said the group would take action if it did so.

Asked about the prospect of escalation, Elharrar said: “We are not there at all. Really, such is the disconnect [between rhetoric and reality] that I do not believe they would take action.”

But she added: “Israel is making preparations [and] I recommend that no one try to surprise Israel.”

There has been no immediate U.S. comment.

Last year, Beirut expanded its claim in the disputed zone by around 1,400 square km (540 square miles).

Lebanon has yet to respond to an undisclosed proposal by the U.S. envoy earlier this year.
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President Joe Biden will use executive action on Monday to help bridge a solar panel supply gap and kickstart stalled U.S. projects after an investigation froze imports from key foreign suppliers, sources familiar with the matter said.

The moves come amid concern about the impact of the Commerce Department’s months-long investigation into whether imports of solar panels from four Southeast Asian nations are circumventing tariffs on goods made in China.

Biden also will invoke the Defense Production Act to drive U.S. manufacturing of solar panels and other clean technologies in the future, with the support of loans and grants, the sources added.

“There is going to be this safe harbor timeout on the … collection of duties, and that’s at the heart of what’s going to save all of these solar projects and ensure that they are going forward,” said one source familiar with the White House’s plans.

State governors, lawmakers, industry officials and environmentalists have expressed concern over the investigation, which could result in retroactive tariffs of up to 250%.

It has essentially halted imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, which account for more than half of U.S. solar panel supplies and 80% of imports.

The investigation has had a chilling effect on the industry, say clean energy groups, some of which have asked Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to dismiss it, though she has said she has no discretion to influence it.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Biden’s action would bring certainty back to the U.S. solar market and allay companies’ concerns about having to hold billions of dollars in reserves to pay potential tariffs.

The investigation, announced at the end of March, could take 150 days or more to complete.

The issue has created a unique dilemma for the White House, which is eager to show U.S. leadership on climate change, in part by encouraging use of renewable energy, while respecting and keeping its distance from the investigation proceedings.

Using executive action and invoking the DPA, which allows presidents some authority over domestic industries, allows Biden to take advantage of the tools available to him without stepping on the tariff inquiry.
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Job growth is strong, wages are up, but May inflation was 8.3%, down slightly from its decades-high of 8.5% reported in April 
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U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Sunday that President Joe Biden has asked his team to look at the option of lifting some tariffs on China that were put into place by former President Donald Trump, to combat the current high inflation.

“We are looking at it. In fact, the president has asked us on his team to analyze that. And so we are in the process of doing that for him and he will have to make that decision,” Raimondo told CNN in an interview on Sunday when asked about whether the Biden administration was weighing lifting tariffs on China to ease inflation.

“There are other products — household goods, bicycles, etc. — and it may make sense” to weigh lifting tariffs on those, she said, adding the administration had decided to keep some of the tariffs on steel and aluminum to protect U.S. workers and the steel industry.

Biden has said he is considering removing some of the tariffs imposed on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese goods by his predecessor in 2018 and 2019 amid a bitter trade war between the world’s two largest economies.  

China has also been arguing that tariff reductions would cut costs for American consumers.

Raimondo also told CNN she felt the ongoing semiconductor chip shortage could likely continue until 2024.

“There is one solution (to the semiconductor chip shortage),” she added. “Congress needs to act and pass the Chips Bill. I don’t know why they are delaying.”

The legislation aims to ramp up U.S. semiconductor manufacturing to give the United States more of a competitive punch against China.  

Raimondo said she disagreed with the characterization that Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan had contributed to the current high inflation. Congress passed the COVID-19 relief package a year ago before it was signed into law, marking a signature achievement of Biden’s first year in office. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden Friday used the May jobs report to promote his efforts to boost the economy and fight inflation by lowering the cost of goods and the federal deficit.

The latest U.S. Labor Department jobs report for last month showed the U.S. economy added 390,000 jobs in the month with the unemployment rate at 3.6%, a near historic low.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, the president said the numbers from May brings the total number of new jobs added in the U.S. economy to 8.7 million since he took office. He said these numbers reflect the significant economic recovery from pandemic-driven recession two years ago, which he said was “the most robust in modern history.”

Biden said the job numbers and other factors reflect an economic foundation that is historically strong, allowing the U.S. to fight inflation from a position of strength. He introduced two additional elements for fighting inflation: lowering costs of “everyday goods,” and lowering the deficit.

The president said higher costs for the two primary goods on the minds of U.S. consumers —gasoline and food — are directly related to “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war in Ukraine.”

“Ukraine has 20 million tons of grain in storage right now, and it’s been in storage since the last harvest,” said Biden. “Normally, that would have already been exported into the world market. But because of Putin’s invasion and a blockade of the port at which they could take that grain out for the rest of the world, it’s not.”

Biden said he has offered proposals to lower inflation that have stalled in Congress, such as clean energy investment proposal that would lower energy costs, as well as plans to lower prescription drug costs, rent and mortgages, and high-speed internet. He called on Congress to move on these and other proposals.

The president said lowering the federal deficit is another effective way to lower inflation. He said, according to the Congressional budget office says the U.S. is on track to lower the federal deficit by $1.7 trillion this year and credited his economic strategies to driving than decline.

Biden was also asked about a recent announcement by Tesla CEO Elon Musk saying he had a “super bad” feeling about the U.S. economy and wants to cut 10% jobs at his electric vehicle company.

The president responded by noting Ford Motor company was adding six thousand new jobs, as are other U.S. car makers, and the computer chip maker Intel was adding 20,000 new jobs. He added, to Musk, “Lots a’ luck on his trip to the moon.”

The president also would not comment on reports that he plans to travel to Saudi Arabia later this month, though he did say he say there is a possibility he would be making a Mideast and meeting with regional leaders that could include representatives from Saudi Arabia.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press.
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President Joe Biden has decided to travel to Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks and is expected to meet with the kingdom’s crown prince, whom he once shunned for his brutality. It’s a visit that is coming together as OPEC+ announced Thursday it will pump more oil amid skyrocketing energy costs around the globe.

Biden’s first trip to the Saudi kingdom as president is likely to occur later this month but details have not been finalized, a person familiar with the planning told The Associated Press.

The White House on Thursday praised Saudi Arabia for its role securing an OPEC+ pledge to pump more oil and the president himself lauded the Saudis for agreeing to a cease-fire extension in its eight-year-old war with Yemen that was also announced Thursday.

“Saudi Arabia demonstrated courageous leadership by taking initiatives early on to endorse and implement terms of the U.N.-led truce,” Biden said in a statement after the 60-day extension of the cease fire was announced.

Those warm words mark a sharp contrast with some of Biden’s earlier rhetoric about the oil-rich kingdom. As a candidate, he pledged to treat the Saudis as a “pariah” for the 2018 killing and dismemberment of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s brutal ways. U.S. intelligence officials determined that the Saudi crown prince likely approved the killing of the journalist.

Biden administration officials have been working behind the scenes to repair relations, discussing shared strategic interests in security and oil with their Saudi counterparts. 

The effort has played out as the fallout from the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the world’s No. 2 crude exporter after Saudi Arabia, and a Saudi-Russian brokered cap on oil production have raised crude prices and sent prices Americans pay at the pump to record highs.

Biden and Democrats face rising voter anger over the high prices, making the tight oil supply a top political liability.

Appeals from the U.S. and its allies for the OPEC+ group — OPEC nations plus Russia — to boost production more appeared to bear results Thursday. OPEC nations announced they would raise production by 648,000 barrels per day in July and August, offering modest relief for a struggling global economy.

The increase did not appear to ease concerns about tight supply. Oil prices rose after OPEC+ announced the increase.

In a statement, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre acknowledged what she said was Saudi Arabia’s role “in achieving consensus” within the oil producers’ bloc. She thanked the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq as well.

Jean-Pierre also directly cited “the leadership of King Salman and the Crown Prince” in Thursday’s announcement of an extended U.N. cease-fire in Yemen, where Saudi-led forces have led an unsuccessful war to rout that country’s Houthi rebels.

The White House is weighing a Biden visit that would also include a meeting of the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates — as well as Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, according to the person familiar with White House planning, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the yet-to-be finalized trip.

Biden would be expected to meet with Prince Mohammed during the visit, according to the person.

Such a meeting could ease a tense and uncertain period in the partnership between Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, and the United States, the world’s top economic and military power, that has stood for more than three-quarters of a century.

But it also risks a public humbling for the U.S. leader, who in 2019 pledged to make a “pariah” of the Saudi royal family over the killing of Khashoggi.

Biden is expected to travel to Europe at the end of June and could tack on a stop in Saudi Arabia to meet with Prince Mohammed, Saudi King Salman and other leaders. If he does, Biden would also likely visit Israel.

Israeli officials in their engagement with the Biden administration have pressed their point of view that U.S. relations with Arab capitals, including Riyadh, are critical to Israel’s security and overall stability in the region. The visit could also provide an opportunity to kick off talks for what the administration sees as a longer-term project of normalizing Israel-Saudi relations.

And while the Biden administration continues to be concerned about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, the president’s advisers credit Saudis for showing greater restraint in its conflict with Yemen since Biden took office.

White House officials expect criticism from Democratic allies and human rights advocates charging Biden is backtracking on human rights, but suggest that in the long term a credible Middle East strategy without key leaders in the kingdom is not tenable.

Biden, through the early going of his presidency, has repeatedly said the world is at a key moment in history where democracies must demonstrate they can out-deliver autocracies. The administration doesn’t want to see countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia with troubling human rights records fall into the camp of Moscow and Beijing.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a Washington audience Wednesday that Biden’s intent coming into office was to “recalibrate the relationship with Saudi Arabia and to make sure that that relationship was serving our own interests as well as our values as we move forward — but also preserving it.”

“And that’s largely what we’ve done,” Blinken said.

U.S. officials were recently in the region for talks with Saudi officials about energy supplies, Biden administration efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal, and the war in Yemen.

Frequent, warm visits among Saudi, Russian and Chinese officials during the freeze between Biden and the Saudi crown prince have heightened Western concern that Saudi Arabia is breaking from Western strategic interests.

Besides helping to keep gas prices high for consumers globally, the tight oil supply helps Russia fund its invasion of Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited the Saudi kingdom Tuesday.

Officials in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for their part, see Biden as the latest of several U.S. presidents to neglect the U.S. military’s longstanding protector role in the Gulf, as the United States tries to focus on China.

Those Gulf security worries may be eased by the U.S. move last year bringing control of its forces in Israel under U.S. Central Command. That effectively increases interaction between Israel’s U.S.-equipped military and Arab forces under the U.S. military umbrella, said Dan Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, now a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a “super bad feeling” about the economy and needs to cut about 10% of jobs at the electric carmaker, he said in an email to executives seen by Reuters.

The message, sent on Thursday and titled “pause all hiring worldwide,” came two days after the billionaire told staff to return to the workplace or leave, and adds to a growing chorus of warnings from business leaders about the risks of recession.

Tesla employed almost 100,000 people at the company and its subsidiaries at the end of 2021, according to its annual SEC filing.

The company was not immediately available for comment.

Tesla shares fell nearly 3% in U.S. pre-market trade on Friday and its Frankfurt-listed stock was down 3.6% after the Reuters report. U.S. Nasdaq futures NQcv1 turned negative and were trading 0.6% lower.

Musk has warned in recent weeks about the risk of a recession, but his email ordering a hiring freeze and staff cuts was the most direct and high-profile message of its kind from the head of an automaker.

So far, demand for Tesla cars and other electric vehicles has remained strong and many of the traditional indicators of a downturn – including increasing dealer inventories and incentives in the United States – have not materialized.

But Tesla has struggled to restart production at its Shanghai factory after COVID-19 lockdowns forced costly outages at the plant.

“Musk’s bad feeling is shared by many people,” said Carsten Brzeski, global head of macroeconomic research at Dutch bank ING. “But we are not talking about global recession. We expect a cooling of the global economy towards the end of the year. The U.S. will cool off, while China and Europe are not going to rebound.”

Musk’s gloomy outlook echoes recent comments from executives including JPMorgan Chase & Co JPM.N CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs President John Waldron.

A “hurricane is right out there down the road coming our way,” Dimon said this week.

Inflation in the United States is hovering at 40-year highs and has caused a jump in the cost of living for Americans, while the Federal Reserve faces the difficult task of dampening demand enough to curb inflation while not causing a recession.

Musk, the world’s richest man according to Forbes, did not elaborate on the reasons for his “super bad feeling” about the economic outlook in the brief email seen by Reuters.

A number of analysts have cut price targets for Tesla recently, forecasting slower deliveries due to Chinese lockdowns and lost output at its Shanghai plant, a hub supplying electric vehicles to China and for export.

China accounted for just over a third of Tesla’s global deliveries in 2021, according to company disclosures and data released on sales there.

Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said in a tweet it appeared Musk and Tesla were “trying to be ahead of a slower delivery ramp this year and preserve margins ahead of an economic slowdown.”

‘Pause all hiring’

Before Musk’s warning, Tesla had about 5,000 job postings on LinkedIn from sales in Tokyo and engineers at its new Berlin gigafactory to deep learning scientists in Palo Alto. It had scheduled an online hiring event for Shanghai on June 9 on its WeChat channel.

Musk’s demand that staff return to the office has already faced pushback in Germany.

“Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,” Musk wrote in his Tuesday email. “If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.”

Musk has referred to the risk of a recession repeatedly in recent comments.

Remotely addressing a conference in mid-May in Miami Beach, Musk said: “I think we are probably in a recession and that recession will get worse.” He added: “It’ll probably be some tough going for, I don’t know, a year, maybe 12 to 18 months, is usually the amount of time that it takes for a correction to happen.”

In late May, when asked by a Twitter user whether the economy was approaching a recession, Musk said: “Yes, but this is actually a good thing. It has been raining money on fools for too long. Some bankruptcies need to happen.”

Musk also engaged on Thursday in a Twitter spat with Australia tech billionaire and Atlassian Plc TEAM.O co-founder Scott Farquhar, who ridiculed the back-to-office directive as “like something out of the 1950s.”

Musk tweeted: “recessions serve a vital economic cleansing function,” in response to a tweet by Farquhar who encouraged Tesla employees to look into its remote work positions.

Jason Stomel, founder of tech talent agency Cadre said of the return-to-work directive: “I think there’s potential that this is just a disguised layoff, meaning they’re able to get rid of people with attrition, or without having to actually have a layoff.”

“(Musk) knows there’s a percentage of workers who are just not going to come back,” which he said would be cheaper because no severance would be needed.
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As China’s COVID-containment lockdowns stall goods en route to price-conscious U.S. consumers, New Jersey manufacturer Mitch Cahn is finding traces of gold in the snapped links of the global supply chain.

Eleven miles from Manhattan, business is surging at Cahn’s textile company, which boasts a 100% local supply chain.

“We manufacture everything from scratch right here in north Newark. We have been in business for 30 years, we now have about 155 workers, and we are hoping to hire another 25 immediately,” said Cahn, founder and president of Unionwear.

Established in 1992, Unionwear manufactures customized baseball hats, scarves and backpacks in the North Ward of New Jersey’s most populous city.

“Business is very solid this year. We’ve seen a surge in business from companies that are no longer able to import goods, and now they are buying products domestically,” Cahn told VOA Mandarin.

For his customers, the “Made in USA” price is right after decades in which American stores were filled with less costly Chinese-made products.

His buyers are not alone in their support for U.S.-made goods. In a 2020 survey by the Reshoring Institute, which advocates the return of manufacturing to the U.S., about 70% of the American respondents said they preferred U.S.-made products. Among them, 83% said they would pay up to 20% more for products made domestically.

COVID snaps supply chain

China has imposed strict COVID-containment lockdowns that are disrupting the supply chain. Export goods are going nowhere as shipping companies increase freight charges and pandemic-related labor shortages worsen delays.

According to the BR Logistics website, container rates for China-U.S. routes are now between $15,000 and $18,000 dollars per 40-foot container, or two to three times higher than pre-pandemic prices.

In addition, the Ukraine crisis has disrupted the global energy supply, pushing oil prices, and therefore shipping costs, higher. Cahn’s baseball caps and other products gain an edge because his products travel shorter distances to reach U.S. buyers, a cost saving that helps counter China’s lower labor costs.

Cahn said that before the pandemic, his baseball caps cost about 30% to 40% more than imports from China.

Currently a baseball cap bought for $2.50 in China will end up being $8 to $9 dollars a unit when it gets to the U.S., he said, once tariffs, shipping costs, packaging and the cost of meeting testing requirements for goods manufactured overseas are added in. The 10% to 15% U.S. tariff imposed on textile products accounts for some of that price differential, according to just-style.com, an industry website.

On average, Unionwear’s baseball caps cost around $8 to $10 per unit wholesale.

“Now we are competitive,” Cahn said.

Now focused on supply chain resiliency because of the pandemic, companies bigger than his are seeing the benefits of using suppliers closer to their customers. “Many U.S. companies are realizing that keeping processes closer to home can be much more reliable and secure,” according to an April Thomasnet.com article.

General Motors announced on January 25 that it would invest $7 billion in its plant in the U.S. state of Michigan to advance production of electric and autonomous vehicles through 2025, according to a news release from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

Although the announcement made no mention of China, it said the investment would solidify and strengthen the supply chain throughout Michigan, long known for its concentration of automotive-related manufacturers and suppliers. As Governor Gretchen Whitmer boasted, it’s “the place that put the world on wheels.”

Some non-U.S. companies have also pledged to invest in the U.S. to serve their customers in the North American market. South Korea’s Samsung announced in November that it would invest $17 billion in a new facility in Texas to produce advanced semiconductors and ensure the “stability of the global semiconductor supply chain.” The plant is expected to become operational in late 2024.

Samsung, which has operated a memory chip plant in China since 2014, is part of a larger trend. According to the most recent Kearney Reshoring Index released in 2022, “79 percent of executives who have manufacturing operations in China have either already moved part of their operations to the United States or plan to do so in the next three years, and another 15 percent are evaluating similar moves.”

‘Triple bottom-line mindset’

William Reinsch, an expert in international trade at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, said that many U.S. companies have been considering localizing their supply chains for quite some time.

“This is not a new thing. This is at least [a] 10-year trend. [The companies] want to have shorter supply chains. They want to be near their customers. They are concerned about volatile energy prices and rising shipping costs, both ocean freight and air freight,” he told VOA Mandarin.

The tariffs imposed during the Trump administration on most Chinese imports have created price spikes that have made it more expensive to import those goods, Reinsch said, and COVID-19 has revealed supply chain flaws to companies.

Harry Moser is the founder and president of the Reshoring Initiative, a nonprofit group focused on bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. Moser told VOA Mandarin that “20% to 30% of the companies can be brought back without raising prices to their customers, without reducing their profit margin, by recognizing all the costs that they previously ignored.”

Some examples of products ripe for reshoring, Moser said, include those that incur high freight charges or involve frequent design changes, or those with volatile demand, such as seasonal clothing.

“The idea here would be to shorten supply chains,” said Nick Vyas, an associate professor of operations and a supply chain expert at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

The customer-centric supply chain would benefit companies in multiple ways, Vyas told VOA Mandarin. “It will be much more resilient, and it certainly would be a lot more sustainable. We will have a lot less carbon footprint than what we have produced over the last 30 years.”

Vyas said that for the past three decades, business leaders ran companies with a bottom-line mindset that considered only the cost of manufacturing.

“We need to get into the triple bottom-line mindset: Cost is one variable, but we also need to think about resiliency and sustainability,” he said.

Unionwear’s Cahn is optimistic about reshoring. He thinks the era of cheap imports is over and has some advice for companies looking to strengthen their supply chains: “I think it makes sense to develop a relationship with domestic source of supply … and also develop relationships with suppliers” in places such as the Caribbean Basin, South America and Canada. With tighter links, manufacturers can “insulate [themselves] from the ever-increasing costs of getting goods across the oceans.”
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