Plus: Under Trump Tariffs, ‘Made In Vietnam’ Will Be The New ‘Made In China’ |
| Good morning, The nation’s largest company in terms of revenue would likely have to hike prices if President-elect Donald Trump enacts his proposed tariffs. Walmart’s chief financial officer told CNBC that “There probably will be cases where prices will go up for consumers,” though he noted the company would work with its suppliers to try and bring prices down. Trump has backed a roughly 10% tax on all imports and 60% tax on Chinese imports, a move economists have warned would be inflationary. As higher costs have already lingered after the pandemic, economists at Bank of America and Goldman Sachs predict Trump’s tariffs would increase annual inflation by 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points.
Let’s get into the headlines, |
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| Nvidia shares surged ahead of its quarterly earnings release slated for Wednesday, which will have sweeping ramifications for the hot but rocky stock market. Bank of America strategists said the AI juggernaut is the “most dominant” and “most important stock in the market,” and Wall Street expects another blowout quarter for the company. |
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| | | Under Trump Tariffs, ‘Made In Vietnam’ Will Be The New ‘Made In China’ |
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| President-elect Donald Trump says his plan to impose heavy tariffs on goods imported to the U.S. will shrink the federal deficit, lower food prices and create more jobs at home. But such reshoring is unlikely, certainly not at the scale and speed that Trump wants, if ever. Instead, expect to see one country as a major beneficiary of Trump’s policies: Vietnam. During the previous Trump Administration, major foreign corporations, including Apple, Foxconn and Intel started pivoting to Vietnam to diversify their manufacturing portfolio. Just two months ago, SpaceX announced a $1.5 billion investment in Vietnam, too. Even the Trump Organization is investing in the country, with a recently trumpeted $1.5 billion luxury real estate deal. And now, the Southeast Asian nation is well-positioned to benefit even more from the anticipated anti-China sentiment of the forthcoming administration—especially if it moves quickly to streamline regulation so that businesses can move in. Vietnam has a number of advantages over other regional rivals like India. First, as a single-party authoritarian state, Vietnam can and does set new business-friendly policies quickly. Additionally, the country is geographically well-positioned: It already has three of the world’s top 50 busiest ports, and is next-door to China, making trade and logistics between the two countries easier. Critically, Vietnam also has a free-trade agreement with the European Union—the only other regional country besides Singapore to have one. |
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| “Vietnam’s rise matters as it suggests that Trump’s proposed tariffs may not be as effective as he says they will be,” says Forbes senior writer Cyrus Farivar. “The southeastern Asian nation is set to capitalize on the accelerated shift of manufacturing out of China.” |
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| Private equity firm Blackstone announced it reached an agreement with Jersey Mike’s owner Peter Cancro to acquire a majority of the sandwich chain, in a deal reported to value Jersey Mike’s at $8 billion. A deal with the $220 billion investment powerhouse would mark a huge change for the sandwich chain, which has been 100% owned by Cancro since 1975. |
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| Phil Venables, chief information security officer of Google Cloud and an honoree on the 2024 Forbes CIO Next list, has become a sort of AI and cybersecurity whisperer for colleagues in similar roles, and his potential customer pool is massive. Google Cloud is the third largest cloud provider in the world, with clients that include major companies like Walmart, Uber, Major League Baseball and Mercedes-Benz. |
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Trump on Tuesday nominated Mehmet Oz to run the Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services, and while the celebrity doctor who previously ran for The Senate has raked in cash from TV, much of his fortune comes from a different source: his wife’s wealthy family. Her grandfather cofounded Asplundh Tree Expert, which trims trees for electric utilities, municipalities and others, and is the 109th biggest private company in America on Forbes’ 2023 list.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office argued in a court filing that President-elect Donald Trump’s criminal conviction in his hush-money case should not be thrown out, but it will allow Trump’s sentencing to be postponed—potentially until after he leaves office. The fate of Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges hangs in the balance following his electoral win, and Trump intends to argue the charges should be thrown out because he has immunity from prosecution as a sitting president. |
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| Few organizations in the country manage as vast an array of information and communications as NASA: Between incoming data from Voyager probes outside the solar system to images from Mars rovers, the agency wrangles five times the amount of data stored in the Library of Congress. Jeff Seaton, NASA’s chief information officer featured on Forbes’ CIO Next List, says the agency has been using AI for years, but expects slower adoption of the “black box” that is generative AI. |
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| Republicans have long positioned themselves as pro-business and pro-school choice, and it’s likely that the incoming Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress will grease the wheels for federal and state education policies—including vouchers, tax credits and education savings accounts—that benefit public and private education businesses. State-funded education savings accounts, referred to as ESAs, are particularly poised to prosper, experts say, and they could be essential to edtech companies that are seeing their customers dwindle as Covid-era federal funding for K-12 schools runs dry. |
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| A nature-inspired Tiffany Studios stained glass window became the most expensive Tiffany piece ever auctioned, almost doubling its expected sale price. The 16-foot-high window previously owned by billionaire Alan Gerry sold in a Sotheby’s auction Monday to an anonymous buyer: |
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$12.48 million | The sale price for the Danner Memorial Window, its second time breaking a Tiffany Studios record after its 2000 sale | |
| 1913 | The year the window was made | |
| $1.5 billion | Alan Gerry’s net worth as of Tuesday, ranking him as the 2,152nd richest person in the world |
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| For couples where one partner earns significantly more money, open communication around managing household expenses is key. It’s critical to talk through your respective ideas of fairness, whether that’s covering separate expenses according to personal priorities, or splitting costs based on consumption. Be sure to regularly revisit your arrangement, since income levels and priorities can change over time. |
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