Good morning,

Maybe tariffs isn’t “the most beautiful word.”

Perhaps, it’s rolled pack, or truce.

Either way, the administration’s announcement yesterday that it is rolling back triple-digit tariffs on Chinese products for at least 90 days was a relief to businesses of all sizes and many industries.

However, not knowing what happens next only makes the trade war truce (surrender?) helpful to a degree.

In a Globe interview before yesterday’s announcement, Jerry and Eric Michelson, owners of Michelson’s Shoes in Needham and Lexington, said they’re well stocked for the spring and summer.

 “It‘s really going to be the fall and even the holiday season when we’re going to be affected,” Jerry Michelson said.

Even with a tariff armistice, a lack of shipping containers leaving China, has to be worrying every retailer and consumer, not just 11-year-old baby girls.

“The result of that is that your fall shoes are probably going to come late,” Eric Michelson said. “We don’t know what‘s going to happen. It‘s really a crazy frustrating problem, causing a lot of stress.”

BTW, linguists say the most beautiful word is one of these.

I value your feedback

SharkNinja’s been working on this since Trump One

One of our chamber’s largest members would have been decimated by a China trade war, if it hadn’t been planning for a moment like this for years.

During the first Trump administration, all of SharkNinja’s US-bound products were made in China.

But the Needham-based maker of appliances and other household products has shifted making its US-bound products to factories in several countries in Southeast Asia, reports the Globe’s Jon Chesto

By the end of the year, nearly all of its US-bound items will be made elsewhere, though it will keep some China manufacturing for other markets.

“There are a subset of our products that could be made in the US [but] it’s not a short-term process,” said CEO Mark Barrocas. “Over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, I could potentially see something made in the US.”

Do you know what the biggest risk to our economy is?

Trying to make sense of the latest economic trends? Wondering what it means to our region? Do state leaders have any ideas or plans for countering federal policies and growing our economy?

We still have a few seats left for our Spring Business Breakfast: 2025 Economic Outlook, tomorrow morning at the Needham Sheraton.

It’s not too soon to be planning for this major headache

It’s not too soon to plan for two upcoming weekends of intense congestion on the Mass. Turnpike near I-95 on the Newton/Weston line.

All but one lane will be closed in both directions between exits 123 and 125 on the on the weekends of May 30-June 2 and June 20-23.

Worcester line trains will also shut down and be replaced with shuttle buses. Amtrak service to Albany be affected too.

MassDOT also expects I-95, Route 9, Route 16, Commonwealth Ave, Washington Street, Beacon Street to be clogged, along with any other streets where wayfinding apps will send drivers.

Even if you don’t use the Pike yourself, consider how it will impact your employees, your customers, your deliveries and any events you may have been planning or hoped to attend.

Sign up here for project updates about the Newton-Weston bridge replacement and rehabilitation project.

Tuesday grab bag

• The Needham Select Board is moving ahead with a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. tonight on a redesign of Great Plain Ave., even after voting last week to pause the project for at least six months.
  
  
• Here’s the Attorney General’s office Resources for Immigrants in Massachusetts webpage.
  
  
• Alumni volunteers from the Harvard Business and Kennedy Schools can assist your nonprofit with pro bono strategic and business planning, operational issues, financial planning and analysis, organizational development and more. View examples and apply by June 6.
  
  
• Businesses in select Greater Boston zip codes (including many in our footprint) can apply for monetary, marketing and technology grants through Comcast RISE and an affiliation with chamber member Colette Phillips Communications.
  
  
• MeetBoston had been projecting a 4 to 5% increase in international tourism this year. Now they’re saying they expect a 10% drop in international visitors for the rest of the year. (GBH)
  
  

Town Meeting envy?

Newly elected Wellesley Select Board member Kenny Largess tells the Swellesley Report that he thought this year’s Wellesley Town Meeting might have been too long.

“Largess would like to see Wellesley explore ways to make Town Meeting more efficient. He pointed to Needham Town Meeting sessions that took about half as much time,” writes Bob Brown.

Maybe so, but at least Wellesley doesn’t hold its annual meetings during the NBA and NHL playoffs.

Needham says ‘Skip the Fines’

Indeed, Needham Town Meeting members missed an exciting (and disheartening) Celtics game last night (Oh my, that Tatum injury!), but did pass a Skip the Stuff ordinance.

Also approved was a ban on the sale and distribution of black plastic, but only after the proposed ordinance was amended to remove any fines.

Some members questioned the science behind black plastic health concerns. 

Feds won’t enforce new independent contractor rules

Finally, the U.S. Department of Labor says it will not enforce federal rules that directed employers on how to decide if a worker is an employee or an independent contractor.

The Biden-era rule replaced an earlier Trump rule, which now seems destined to be replaced by a new, second Trump-era rule, which somehow reminds me of the classic poem, “There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.”

But I digress.

In the meantime, the new administration will not enforce the previous guidance, which is still the subject of several lawsuits, writes Andy Medici for the BBJ.

A blog post by law firm Littler Mendelson recommends employers review Fact Sheet 13, which the Labor Department said it would use for enforcement purposes.  

Oh, and don’t forget there are state laws too.

And that, my friends, is yet another example of why employers often say: Just give us some consistency so we can run our businesses.

And that’s what you need to know for today, unless you need to know why Yoda Talks Backwards.

Hope you tomorrow see.

Greg Reibman (he, him)

President & CEO

Charles River Regional Chamber

617.244.1688

Max Woolf contributed to today’s newsletter.