Yet another reprieve for TikTok
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Price guarantee applies to then current base monthly rate. Additional terms and conditions apply. TikTok has a new extension. I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles, starting with the irrepressible TikTok company that shows being popular outranks the law of the land sometimes. There's been another reprieve for the short video company regarding a bipartisan U.S. law that was supposed to take effect in January. It required TikTok's

China-based owner ByteDance to sell its U.S. operations to an American company or get banned from U.S. app stores and U.S. computer servers. But this week, the Trump administration delayed the law's implementation for a third time. Marketplace's Kimberly Adams reports.

This all started back in 2019 when national security experts and members of Congress started raising the alarm that Chinese-owned TikTok having so much data and influence on Americans was a major threat.

And the first Trump administration, back then, seemed to agree. But now, says Kenton Teba, senior resident China fellow at the Atlantic Council. It's kind of a shift in terms of the first administration where we saw much more of this kind of national security focus change.

and more on kind of like practical, commercial-based considerations. Because TikTok isn't just popular with a third of U.S. adults using the app, it's also the way a lot of businesses and people make money. It's much, much easier on TikTok to monetize your content. Influencers get paid a lot more. And so TikTok users have been kind of loyal to the app.

When President Biden signed the bipartisan law that was supposed to force the sale or banning of TikTok, it did spook the market a bit. There was a chapter there where brands just weren't willing to invest as much capital in their TikTok initiatives. Dylan Smith, the CEO of Teamchecked, a celebrity influencer and brand management firm.

But after the first extension and then the second extension, I think everyone's fear was calmed there. And we've seen just as much investment and onboarding of new brands as we did at its prime. Now, Smith says no one actually thinks TikTok is really going to get banned. So they're just waiting to see what a deal will look like.

In the meantime, TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, has been busy here in Washington, increasing the amount it spent on lobbying from $270,000 in 2019 to more than $10 million last year. And so far this year?

This first quarter is $3.36 million, and so this is a sharp increase. It's the biggest Q1 spend by ByteDance. Hillary Brasseth is executive director of Open Secrets, which tracks money in politics and compiled the data on ByteDance's lobbying efforts. This is a clear effort to try to engage officials at many levels of government to try to maintain the position they have, which is to be able to remain independent

owned by the same owners and also able to operate in the way that they've been operating. And so far, those efforts seem to be working. In Washington, I'm Kimberly Adams for Marketplace.

Now at Verizon, we're locking in low prices for three years guaranteed on MyPlan. And you can get a single line for just $45 a month when you switch and bring your phone. That's our best price ever on unlimited welcome with auto pay plus taxes and fees guaranteed for three years. Because at Verizon, we got you. Visit your local DC Verizon store today. $20 monthly promo credits applied over 36 months with a new line on unlimited welcome. In times of congestion, unlimited 5G and 4G LTE may be temporarily slower than other traffic.

More than 2 billion pairs of shoes, nearly 60% of them from China, got shipped into the U.S. last year. Could more shoes be made in the U.S. at a time of higher tariffs? Yes, but it's taking a lot of automation. Footwear maker Keen will open a new factory in Kentucky next month. The BBC's Michelle Fleury has this report.

In Portland, Oregon, Keen, famous for its sandals and hiking boots, is taking a different approach. Rising costs in China pushed it to start manufacturing in the US in 2010, a move that's now giving it a competitive edge amid Trump's tariffs, as I discovered when I spoke to the shoemaker's chief operating officer, Harry Perrimal. You're doing already what Donald Trump wants companies to do, which is manufacture here in the United States.

How does that compare with production, your experience of manufacturing in other countries? Footwear is a very labor-intensive product to make. It involves a lot of labor. But we are making products here in the USA very economically, very efficiently, and the way we do that is with tons of automation. Traditionally, 80 to 100 people are required in a traditional production line in Asia, and we do that across two ships with 24 people.

in the factory here in the US. Does it cost more to hire American workers versus, say, in some of your other factories and overseas? Absolutely. The labor rates here in the US are very expensive. It is approximately 10 to 12 times more expensive than you would compare to an Asian counterpart. This is a very labor-intensive industry. I'm not sure whether we're going to get American workers in large quantities willing to work for shoe company wages in America.

Keen is making a big move, closing its Portland factory and opening a larger one in Kentucky. One way it copes with that higher American labor cost is automation. There are different ways to get around that. One is a smart automation, clean manufacturing processes and thoughtful product design.

And then, you know, the proximity is so powerful. We are closer to our market and our fans. We can reach 80 percent of Americans within two days of ground shipping. And we reduce our carbon footprint and we create American jobs. Is there anything then you would like to see the Trump administration do that you think would help the shoe manufacturing industry come back to America more?

If we can get some help in terms of reducing tariffs for components that are important to make or materials that are important to make shoes here in America, that might help the broader industry. Keene won't raise prices this year, but others facing rising costs and potential job cuts may have no choice but to pass the pain on to consumers. Michelle Fleury is with our newsroom partners, the BBC.

And some new numbers on wealth and inequality from the Swiss bank UBS. More than 80% of people in the world have total wealth of $100,000 or less, as measured in U.S. dollars. China and Taiwan together have the highest percentage of people, 100K or above, 28%. Western Europe, 25%. The U.S. and Canada down at 21%. As for millionaires, the UBS study shows last year an average of 1,000 people a day crossed into six figures in the U.S. alone. ♪

I'm David Brancaccio. You're listening to the Marketplace Morning Report from APM American Public Media.

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