Business

There’s been a lot of talk over the past few weeks about the economy and a word that keeps coming up is … uncertainty.  

President Trump’s changing tariff policies have made it difficult for businesses and consumers to plan. Stock markets here and abroad have plunged and then recovered some ground and then dropped again.

Many of us have questions about what’s happening and how the uncertainty could affect prices, our jobs and savings.   

Coming up at 9 a.m. on Monday, MPR News host Angela Davis talks about the economy with Neel Kashkari, the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Later in the hour, she’ll talk with a financial advisor about how to manage your money during stock market swings and an unsettled job market.

And we want to hear from you, too.

What questions do you have about tariffs, interest rates, the job market or the economy? What do you want to know about how to manage your money during economic uncertainty?

Call us during the 9 a.m. hour at 651-227-6000 or 800-242-2828.

Guests:

• Chris Farrell is senior economics contributor for MPR News and Marketplace. 

• Neel Kashkari is the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. He serves as a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee which sets the nation’s monetary policy.

• Ross Levin is the founder of Accredited Investors Wealth Management in Edina. And he is a regular columnist for the Minnesota Star Tribune. 

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.   

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In every corner of Minnesota, there are good stories waiting to be told of places that make our state great and people who in Walt Whitman’s words “contribute a verse” each day. MPR News sent longtime reporter Dan Gunderson on a mission to capture those stories as part of a series called “Wander & Wonder: Exploring Minnesota’s unexpected places.”

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Mark Anema and Kate Ritger met at a garlic harvest party. He was looking for land to realize a dream. She was running a community supported agriculture venture for the Sisters of St. Benedict in St. Joseph.

Together they started a small farm near Watkins growing produce and garlic. That partnership has worked pretty well, growing over seven years into marriage, a baby and now lots of lambs on the way. 

The transformation has come easier to Ritger, 44, who grew up around animals on a hobby farm in Wisconsin. Anema, 64, was raised in Detroit and Chicago and spent much of his professional life in investment finance and consulting but couldn’t shake the dream of working a farm in the country.

He concedes life now isn’t easier or more profitable than the one he left, but he’s finding it more rewarding and says changing his life has changed him for the better.

‘They bounce, they hop sideways and jump around’

Garlic is the main crop on their farm, but the lambs provide the show.

Four years ago, a friend texted the couple to say some Icelandic sheep were for sale. “So, we jumped in and bought our first seven ewes,” said Ritger. The flock is now about two dozen ewes and this year they expect 40-50 lambs.

Sheep are a growing part of the farm finances. Spring is a busy time with new lambs being born and sheep needing to be shorn of their thick winter wool.

Icelandic sheep are known as resilient and they generally birth lambs with little trouble. 

“Lambing is very exciting, and what's really exciting is when it's all done and then you’ve got a bunch of little lambs running around,” said Anema. “That's really fun, because the lambs are fun to watch. It's kind of endearing.”

“They bounce, they hop sideways and jump around. And it's really exciting,” said Ritger.  

But it's also stressful, especially when a lamb isn’t able to feed from their mother.

“We did have one reject a lamb, so now it's a bottle lamb,” said Anema. “Bottle lambs are really a bummer. I got up at 3:30 this morning to go give a lamb a bottle, and it's not fun.”

While the lambs are cute and entertaining, they are a key part of the farm balance sheet and will be sold for slaughter within a year, a reality Anema calls bittersweet. “You can't have livestock without getting paid somehow, and I can't afford just to graze sheep and keep them as pets.”

In addition to the meat, the couple sells sheepskins, and skull mounts with impressive curled horns. Ritger is developing a market for woven rugs and tapestries from the wool.

In Minnesota, 2,137 farms collectively had 109,592 sheep and lambs in 2022, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Most of those farms had fewer than 25 sheep.

Garlic is an increasingly popular crop to farm, with some 115 garlic producers in the state growing more than 100 different varieties, according to the Minnesota Grown Program.

‘I don’t worry about what’s going to happen’

Anema’s successful career provided the seed money to start the farm. Ritger works as a hospital chaplain in St. Cloud when she’s not raising sheep. Together, they raise their 4-year-old daughter. 

Despite his expertise in finance, making a living off the land isn’t easy. Garlic is their big crop, but last year disease spread by a leaf hopper insect destroyed nearly one-quarter of the crop.

“This year I'm growing garlic again, and I've just got my fingers crossed that the weather will be different, that the conditions for leaf hoppers will be different. You just don't know. But that's farming, right?” he said. 

“There's not a paycheck, and it's really hard to make a living. Often, when I tote up the cost of all the feed I bought and all the lambs I've sold, I'm only a little bit ahead and so I can't recommend this as a money-making proposition.”

But Anema is not deterred by the financial challenges.

“I'm a lot more relaxed. I don't think I was always very nice when I was working in an office,” he said with a rueful chuckle.

“There's a lot of competition; there's always quite a bit of conflict. I think you learn to deal with that, and that changes your personality,” he said of his past life.

“Out here, I don't really have conflict. I do have a certain anxiety about lambs coming out properly, but I sleep like a log every night, and I don't worry about what’s going to happen at work the next day,” he said.

“I think it's not for everybody, but it is for me. I don't think I'm ever going to leave this place.”

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As tariffs reshape supply chains, more Americans may be checking packaging for the "Made in USA" label, either to sidestep import taxes or to support domestic businesses. But intricate trade rules and far-flung manufacturing networks can mean the country-of-origin stamp may tell only part of the story.

The label "Made in USA" means that all or virtually all of a product — including its parts and assembly — must originate in the United States. However, "virtually all" doesn't mean everything has to be U.S.-made.

"'Made in U.S.A.' is a very specific, very high standard," says Marcus Eeman, senior manager of customs at global logistics firm Flexport.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, which oversees country of origin claims in marketing and advertising, to qualify for the label, U.S. authorities must determine that a product's final assembly or processing has taken place in the U.S., and that a significant portion of its manufacturing costs must also be incurred domestically.

"You probably will never see a car that says 'Made in America,' but you will see it that says 'Assembled in America,' probably with some foreign components as well," Eeman explains.

That said, some foreign components are allowed to still qualify as "Made in U.S.A." — as long as they don't substantially transform the product. Eeman explains that this concept dates back to a 1908 Supreme Court case involving Anheuser-Busch, which used cork from Spain to cap beer bottles. The Court ruled that the cork didn't transform the product, since it didn't change the beer's name, character, or use.

Determining a product's country of origin through the "substantial transformation" test can be tricky, Eeman says. "There is a case where a bulk block of lipstick material was shipped from Italy to China," he says. In China, the block was melted, shaped and packaged. Despite this, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) ruled that the country of origin was still Italy.

The U.S. Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration offers other examples. Ingredients such as sugar, flour, dairy, and nuts can be imported, but once they are baked into cookies in the U.S., the final product is considered substantially transformed — and may carry a "Made in USA" label, it says.

However, bilateral trade agreements can override these rules. Under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), for example, a one-time importation of a commercial product valued under $2,500 is exempt from country of origin labeling requirements.

Then, there is "Assembled in USA." The FTC says, "A product that includes foreign components may be called 'Assembled in USA' without qualification when its principal assembly takes place in the U.S. and the assembly is substantial."

But not all assembly counts. The FTC specifies that a "simple 'screwdriver' operation" doesn't qualify. For instance, importing components such as a motherboard and hard drive and merely assembling them into a computer in the U.S. would not justify an "Assembled in USA" label. A more accurate claim would be "Made in U.S. from Imported Parts."

"You'll likely never see a car labeled 'Made in America,' " Eeman adds, "but you might see one labeled 'Assembled in America,' often with some foreign components."

Things can get even more complicated when it comes to food products, specifically pork and beef.

In 2015, Mexico and Canada successfully challenged U.S. country of origin labeling (COOL) requirements for pork and beef at the World Trade Organization. The WTO found that rules that muscle cuts of beef and pork, and ground beef and pork must be labeled with their country of origin unfairly disadvantaged foreign producers, leading Congress to repeal the COOL requirements for those meats.

"Beef and pork, which were once required to be labeled, [now] don't have any country of origin labeling requirements," says Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at the non-profit Consumer Federation of America. "You can take a cow that spends its entire life in Mexico… ship it back across the border, slaughter it the same day, and call it a 'Ground beef product of the USA.'"

Still, Pam Lewison, agriculture research director at the Washington Policy Center, notes that most U.S. meat is in fact produced domestically. But for other food items, she says, country of origin labeling remains complicated. "Ideally, you want to see a label that says the product was made, produced, and sourced from the United States."

She adds a word of caution to consumers: "If you're buying asparagus in December, you shouldn't fool yourself about where it's coming from — it's not coming from here."

Copyright 2025, NPR

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In its 52-year history, the Twin Cities Auto Show has not seen many times like these. Tariffs on imported autos and car parts are changing the dynamic for sellers and buyers, sometimes in customers’ favor.

Brent and Smita Dolan brought their two young children to the Minneapolis Convention Center on the show’s opening day Friday to look for an SUV as an alternative to their fleet of four small cars.

“We came here because it’s a pain to bring kids to a dealership and this is an easy way to run around without some of that pressure,” said Brent Dolan.

The Dolans normally would have bought a used car, but they want this one to last as long as possible.

Brent says he wants to make a purchase soon before tariffs drive up the price, even though prices are “scary.” The Dolans were interested in a Lexus GX or a Kia Telluride.

“We would appreciate it if they weren’t as high as they are now. They’re going to go up. That much is for sure.”

Organizers say about 50,000 people visit the multi day show every year — and half of them are there to find the vehicle they want to buy and the dealer to buy it from.

This year’s car show comes at an unusually volatile time for the automobile industry.

President Donald Trump’s 25 percent tariff on imported cars and car parts wasn’t part of last week’s partial 90-day tariff pause.

Rachna Shah, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Business, has researched manufacturing and efficiency.

Shah says it’s theoretically possible prices will fall as consumers anticipate the U.S. making more cars and delay their buying.

“What I do see is prices are likely to go up at least in the short and medium term,” Shah said.

Fears of rising prices or shortages could lead to a sudden influx of car purchases. Shah added that domestic and used cars aren't safe from potential price increases.

If imported cars become less affordable, demand for cheaper alternatives will rise, and prices could go up accordingly. Even cars that are made in the U.S. can contain parts that have crossed borders multiple times during the manufacturing process. Given all that, Shah suggests acting within the next week while inventory is there.

“If you can wait a little longer, two to three years, I think the prices, although higher than today, will have settled to a more manageable, stable norm,” Shah said.

Twin Cities Auto Show organizer Scott Lambert says there are lots of trucks at the Minneapolis event, since that’s what Minnesotans prefer.

Lambert, who leads the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association, said prices may not rise until dealerships sell off several months of inventory. Dealerships tell Lambert some customers are rushing to buy before that happens.

The future may not deliver the same profits.

“We’ve seen recessions, we’ve seen 9/11, we’ve seen national bank failures and the dealers have hung in there,” Lambert said. “They know how to roll with the punches and they will survive.”

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The Federal Trade Commission's blockbuster antitrust case against Meta kicks off on Monday in a courtroom in Washington, DC. It's the culmination of a nearly six-year investigation into whether the social media giant broke competition laws in acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp.

At stake is the future Meta's enormous advertising business and the prospect of having to spin off its hugely popular services into separate companies.

Lawyers for the FTC and Meta will deliver opening statements on Monday before U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in a trial expected to stretch for seven to eight weeks.

Reams of evidence and dozens of witnesses will be scrutinized. The government plans to call CEO Mark Zuckerberg, former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, to the witness stand.

What is the FTC's case against Meta?

The FTC argues that when Meta acquired Instagram, in 2012, and WhatsApp, two years later, that it was part of a strategy to eliminate competition and maintain monopoly power over the social media market. The government contends that a "buy or bury" strategy propelled Meta's acquisitions, leading Meta to gobble up competitors it viewed as threats, or to squash the rivals out of business altogether. The FTC says this alleged behavior is illegal under federal antitrust laws.

What remedy does the FTC want? 

The government argues the only way to restore competition to the social media marketplace is for Meta to be forced to unwind its purchase of both Instagram and WhatsApp. The government says divesting those apps will allow smaller social media companies compete for consumers and ad dollars and loosen Meta's grip on the industry.

How is Meta expected to respond in court?

Meta counters that it is being punished for being an innovative and aggressive tech company. It has always competed fairly, Meta's lawyers say, and regulators are attempting to punish the tech titan's runaway success. Lawyers for Meta have also said in court filings that the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were approved by regulators more than a decade ago, saying to revisit those decisions now is wrongheaded.

Yet the FTC maintains that Meta was not forthcoming to regulators who cleared the purchases, claiming Meta withheld key information about the company to win the blessing of Washington. Another important facet to Meta's defense is just how different the social media ecosystem is today, versus 2012 and 2014, when the company made those purchases.

Now, Meta says it faces fierce competition from the likes of Elon Musk's X, TikTok, Snapchat and many other social media platforms. In a statement ahead of opening statements, Meta said "its evidence at trial will show what every 17-year-old in the world knows: Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp compete with Chinese-owned TikTok, YouTube, X, iMessage and many others. More than 10 years after the FTC reviewed and cleared our acquisitions, the Commission's action in this case sends the message that no deal is ever truly final."

What would it mean for users of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp if Meta was forced to break up? 

The FTC says it would mean more robust competition among social media startups, and therefore better quality services for everyone. Government lawyers argue that Meta's services have degraded in quality in part because of its dominant position in the marketplace. More competitors, the FTC contends, would help improve what's available to consumers.

Regulators also say Meta's privacy protections have lapsed as a result of its alleged monopoly status. To the FTC, a break-up would mean better social media apps for all of us. But Meta says the opposite: That a breakup would make each of its individual apps less integrated and worse for consumers.

What about the politics of the case? How does CEO Mark Zuckerberg's relationship with Trump play into this trial?

This case first started in Trump's first term, in December 2020. That's when Trump still had a bitter feud with Zuckerberg, but the two have been less confrontational of late. Before he won the November election, Trump threatened to throw Zuckerberg in prison, saying if Zuckerberg's platforms did anything to hurt Trump's chances on the campaign trail, he would "spend the rest of his life in prison."

Like many other executives in Silicon Valley, Zuckerberg has recently been ingratiating himself with the Trump administration. Zuckeberg has publicly praised Trump; he donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee; and he's made company-wide shifts that align with Trump's priorities, like ending Facebook and Instagram's fact-checking program and rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Zuckerberg has also made several visits to Trump's Mar-a-Lago club. There has been speculation that Trump could abandon the trial and settle with Meta but so far, all indications point to the case unfolding for many weeks. That said, the start of the trial does not take a settlement off the time. It is possible, though unlikely, that the two sides reach a settlement in the midst of the trial.

Copyright 2025, NPR

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Minnesota farmers are bracing themselves while planning for the 2025 crop year after experiencing declining net farm incomes in 2024. 

According to new data from the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State, the median net farm income for Minnesota farms statewide dropped to $21,964 in 2024 — the lowest level this century. Farm incomes have dropped significantly since 2022, leaving many farmers in a challenging financial position. 

“We saw not only challenged prices, but also challenged yields given a very wet planting season and then just the challenges that then developed during the year with some drier conditions towards the end of the year,” said Pauline Van Nurden, economist at the University of Minnesota Extension’s Center for Farm Financial Management.

Van Nurden said the hope is that crops can get planted on time this spring, without abnormally high rainfall or floods keeping farmers from planting.

“Hopefully we’ll see a more normal spring where crops can get planted in a timely fashion,” she said. “There certainly is uncertainty out there, and there’s just a lot of factors at play that feed into that. I think farmers are pushing the pencil to their own personal numbers and trying to make the right decisions for their farming operation.”

Crop producers experienced some of the most financial difficulties in 2024, according to the report. The median net farm income for crop producers was nearly at zero dollars. They lost about 25 percent of working capital last year and dipped into cash reserves to make loan payments.

Cash crop sale prices reduced 20 percent or more for major crops in Minnesota. The outlook for 2025 doesn’t look much better, with many producers facing negative margins and challenges in securing yearly financing. 

Livestock, dairy and beef producers had a better financial year, though. Livestock producers saw improved profitability across all types of livestock operations in the state due to lower feed costs and higher livestock commodity pricing.

Dairy and beef producers also experienced improved profitability. Diversified farms fared better financially than specialized crop farms in 2024. 

The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Income Forecast predicts an increase in net cash farm income for this year, and relief is expected from supplemental and ad hoc disaster relief government program assistance. Despite this, farm profitability in 2025 in Minnesota is still uncertain with tariffs, high interest rates and general economic conditions.

Van Nurden said many growers and producers are preparing for the cyclical nature of profitability on their farming operations and are navigating the agricultural landscape the best they can, though the stress isn’t easy on them. She adds it’s important that there are options available and that it’s not all “doom and gloom.”

“I always like to remind people of some of the options and some things that growers and farmers can do to manage through situations like this,” she said. “So digging into the cost of production for their specific farming operation, the crops, the livestock they’re growing, looking at opportunities to trim expenses just even a little bit can make a difference. Taking advantage of marketing opportunities, and just having a plan, and monitoring that plan throughout the year, and then just adjusting as needed.”

The report includes data representing about 13 percent of the state’s farms with gross incomes over $250,000 annually, with 2,198 participants in the Minnesota State Farm Business Management programs and 115 members of the Southwest Farm Business Management Association. 

Farmers who are struggling with stress, anxiety and depression are also encouraged to contact the Minnesota Agricultural Mental Health Specialists who offer free mental health services. The Minnesota Farm & Rural Helpline provides free, confidential counseling 24/7 at (833) 600-2670 or by texting FARMSTRESS to 898211.

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