Business

(NEW YORK) — Tens of thousands of U.S. dockworkers are set to walk off the job early Tuesday morning, clogging dozens of ports along the East and Gulf coasts and potentially raising consumer prices ahead of the holiday season.

“Moments ago, the first large-scale eastern dockworker strike in 47 years began at ports from Maine to Texas, including at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement Tuesday.

“In preparation for this moment, New York has been working around the clock to ensure that our grocery stores and medical facilities have the essential products they need,” Hochul added.

In a statement to ABC News early Tuesday, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) confirmed the union’s first coastwide strike in nearly 50 years was underway. The statement said that “tens of thousands of ILA rank-and-file members” started to set up picket lines at shipping ports up and down the Atlantic and Gulf coasts as of 12:01 am.

“We are prepared to fight as long as necessary, to stay out on strike for whatever period of time it takes, to get the wages and protections against automation our ILA members deserve,” ILA President Harold Daggett said.

The ports account for more than half of the nation’s container imports, facilitating the transport of everything from toys to fresh fruit to nuclear reactors, JPMorgan senior equity analyst Brian Ossenbeck said in a report shared with ABC News.

A prolonged work stoppage of several weeks or months could rekindle inflation for some goods and trigger layoffs at manufacturers as raw materials dry up, experts said.

“A strike would be very, very disruptive,” said Jason Miller, a professor of supply-chain management at Michigan State University who closely tracks imports, told ABC News.

“You can’t take all this freight and either send it to other ports or put it on airplanes,” Miller added. “There is no plan B.”

The ILA, the union representing East Coast and Gulf Coast dockworkers, is seeking higher wages and a ban on the use of some automated equipment.

“ILA longshore workers deserve to be compensated for the important work they do keeping American commerce moving and growing,” the ILA told ABC News in a statement on Monday. “Meanwhile, ILA dedicated longshore workers continue to be crippled by inflation due to USMX’s unfair wage packages.”

The U.S. Maritime Alliance, or USMX, an organization bargaining on behalf of the dockworkers’ employers, declined to respond to an ABC News request for comment.

President Joe Biden retains the power to prevent or halt a strike under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to Biden on Monday urging the White House to intervene, which it has previously said it will not do. The White House told ABC News in a statement that it has been in contact with both the union and management in recent days.

“This weekend, senior officials have been in touch with USMX representatives urging them to come to a fair agreement fairly and quickly – one that reflects the success of the companies. Senior officials have also been in touch with the ILA to deliver the same message,” White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson said.

A prolonged East Coast and Gulf Coast port strike could moderately increase prices for a range of goods, experts told ABC News. That upward pressure on prices would result from a shortage of products caught up in the supply chain blockage, leaving too many dollars chasing after too few items, they added.

Food products are especially vulnerable to an uptick in prices, since food could spoil if suppliers sent the products ahead of time to minimize the strike impact, as they have done for some other goods, Adam Kamins, a senior director of economic research at Moody’s Analytics, told ABC News.

Additionally, a significant share of the nation’s imported auto parts pass through the ports impacted by a potential strike, which could cause an increase in vehicle prices if the strike persists.

Price increases have slowed dramatically from a peak in 2022, but inflation remains higher than the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%. A strike could prevent further progress, according to Kamins.

“We’re not talking about prices skyrocketing by any means, but I think it halts the momentum we’ve had over the last year or so getting inflation back in the bottle,” he said.

In 2002, a strike among workers at West Coast ports lasted 11 days before then-President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act and ended the standoff. However, the last time East Coast and Gulf Coast workers went on strike, in 1977, the work stoppage lasted seven weeks.

Tuesday’s potential work stoppage follows high-profile strikes undertaken last year by auto workers as well as Hollywood writers and actors. Most recently, 33,000 Boeing workers walked off the job in early September, demanding better pay and retirement benefits.

“Trade unions all over the country have been going out on strike,” Sriram Narayanan, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, told ABC News. “We’re seeing that happen now at the ports.”

Ahead of the historic strike, the president of the Teamsters labor union, Sean O’Brien, released a letter of solidarity to the International Longshoreman’s Association, saying, “The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, including our members in the freight industry, stand in full solidarity with the International Longshoremen’s Association as they fight for a fair and just contract with the ocean carriers represented by USMX.”

“Don’t forget –Teamsters do not cross picket lines. The Teamsters Union is 100 percent committed to standing with our Longshoremen brothers and sisters until they win the contract they deserve,” O’Brien said.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Tens of thousands of U.S. dockworkers are set to walk off the job early Tuesday morning, clogging dozens of ports along the East and Gulf coasts and potentially raising consumer prices ahead of the holiday season.

The ports account for more than half of the nation’s container imports, facilitating the transport of everything from toys to fresh fruit to nuclear reactors, JPMorgan senior equity analyst Brian Ossenbeck said in a report shared with ABC News.

A prolonged work stoppage of several weeks or months could rekindle inflation for some goods and trigger layoffs at manufacturers as raw materials dry up, experts said.

“A strike would be very, very disruptive,” said Jason Miller, a professor of supply-chain management at Michigan State University who closely tracks imports, told ABC News.

“You can’t take all this freight and either send it to other ports or put it on airplanes,” Miller added. “There is no plan B.”

The International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA), the union representing East Coast and Gulf Coast dockworkers, is seeking higher wages and a ban on the use of some automated equipment.

“ILA longshore workers deserve to be compensated for the important work they do keeping American commerce moving and growing,” the ILA told ABC News in a statement on Monday. “Meanwhile, ILA dedicated longshore workers continue to be crippled by inflation due to USMX’s unfair wage packages.”

The U.S. Maritime Alliance, or USMX, an organization bargaining on behalf of the dockworkers’ employers, declined to respond to an ABC News request for comment.

President Joe Biden retains the power to prevent or halt a strike under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to Biden on Monday urging the White House to intervene, which it has previously said it will not do. The White House told ABC News in a statement that it has been in contact with both the union and management in recent days.

“This weekend, senior officials have been in touch with USMX representatives urging them to come to a fair agreement fairly and quickly – one that reflects the success of the companies. Senior officials have also been in touch with the ILA to deliver the same message,” White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson said.

A prolonged East Coast and Gulf Coast port strike could moderately increase prices for a range of goods, experts told ABC News. That upward pressure on prices would result from a shortage of products caught up in the supply chain blockage, leaving too many dollars chasing after too few items, they added.

Food products are especially vulnerable to an uptick in prices, since food could spoil if suppliers sent the products ahead of time to minimize the strike impact, as they have done for some other goods, Adam Kamins, a senior director of economic research at Moody’s Analytics, told ABC News.

Additionally, a significant share of the nation’s imported auto parts pass through the ports impacted by a potential strike, which could cause an increase in vehicle prices if the strike persists.

Price increases have slowed dramatically from a peak in 2022, but inflation remains higher than the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%. A strike could prevent further progress, according to Kamins.

“We’re not talking about prices skyrocketing by any means, but I think it halts the momentum we’ve had over the last year or so getting inflation back in the bottle,” he said.

In 2002, a strike among workers at West Coast ports lasted 11 days before then-President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act and ended the standoff. However, the last time East Coast and Gulf Coast workers went on strike, in 1977, the work stoppage lasted seven weeks.

Tuesday’s potential work stoppage follows high-profile strikes undertaken last year by auto workers as well as Hollywood writers and actors. Most recently, 33,000 Boeing workers walked off the job in early September, demanding better pay and retirement benefits.

“Trade unions all over the country have been going out on strike,” Sriram Narayanan, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, told ABC News. “We’re seeing that happen now at the ports.”

ABC News’ Elizabeth Schulze contributed this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Tens of thousands of dockworkers are set to strike as soon as Oct. 1, potentially snarling dozens of ports along the East and Gulf coasts with major implications for the U.S. economy.

A shutdown of the ports would cost the economy up to $4.5 billion each day, according to a report from JPMorgan senior equity analyst Brian Ossenbeck.

The East and Gulf Coast ports account for more than half of U.S. container imports, facilitating the transport of everything from toys to fresh fruit to nuclear reactors, Ossenbeck found.

A strike lasting only a handful of days would wreak little damage, but a prolonged work stoppage of several weeks or months could drive up prices for some goods and cause layoffs at manufacturers as raw materials dry up, experts said.

“The supply chain will start to get shocked after a couple of weeks,” Adam Kamins, a senior director of economic research at Moody’s Analytics, told ABC News. “If it gets beyond that, we’ll start to see some much more signifiant implications.”

The International Longshoreman’s Association, the union representing 45,000 East and Gulf Coast dockworkers, did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment. The U.S. Maritime Alliance, an organization bargaining on behalf of the dockworkers’ employers, declined to respond to a request for comment.

President Joe Biden retains the power to prevent or halt a strike under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. Trade organizations sent a letter to Biden earlier this month urging the White House to intervene.

The White House did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment about the economic implications of a potential strike. In response to a different reporter’s request on Friday for comment, a White House spokesperson said the Biden administration does not intend to intervene but is “monitoring and assessing” ways to address the potential impact of a strike for the nation’s supply chain.

“The president supports collective bargaining and believe it’s the best way for American workers and employers to come to agreement. We continue to encourage the parties to continue negotiating towards an agreement that benefits all sides and prevents any disruption. We’ve never invoked Taft-Hartley to break a strike and are not considering doing so now,” White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson said in part.

Here’s what to know about how a dockworker strike could impact consumers and workers:

Higher inflation

A prolonged East and Gulf Coast port strike could moderately increase prices for a range of goods, experts told ABC News.

That upward pressure on prices would result from a shortage of products caught up in the supply chain blockage, leaving too many dollars chasing after too few items, they added.

Food products are especially vulnerable to an uptick in prices, since food could spoil if suppliers sent the products ahead of time to avert the strike impact as they have done for some other goods, Kamins said.

As much as 75% of the nation’s imported bananas come through ports on the East and Gulf Coasts, threatening the supply of a highly perishable product, Jason Miller, a professor of supply-chain management at Michigan State University, told ABC News.

“It’s simply infeasible to route those bananas through the West Coast ports,” Miller said.

A significant share of the nation’s imported auto parts come through the ports at issue in a potential strike, which could cause an increase in car prices if the strike persists for more than two weeks, Kamins said.

Potential price increases would likely be moderate but may nudge the Federal Reserve to hold off on interest rate cuts expected in the coming months, Kamins added.

“We’re not talking about prices skyrocketing by any means,” Kamins said, but even a few tenths of a percentage point tacked onto the annual inflation rate could scare off the Fed. “If it has an outsized effect on the consumer’s psyche and the Fed’s psyche, that in and of itself creates recession risks,” he said.

Manufacturing disruption and layoffs

A strike lasting a matter of months could cause a shortage of raw materials that brings some manufacturing activity to a halt, leading to layoffs at affected plants as well as in related industries such as shipping and logistics, some experts said.

“If there aren’t shipments to pick up, it would have a boomerang effect across the whole nation,” Bill Stankiewicz, owner of Georgia-based logistics consulting company Savannah Supply Chain, told ABC News.

At the heart of a potential disruption, shortages of parts would prevent manufacturers from assembling and shipping out final products, Miller said. The auto sector would be heavily impacted but the slowdown would affect “all types of industries,” he added.

“If you start having a very extended strike you’ll be looking at temporary layoffs because plants can’t get their parts,” Miller said.

Kamins echoed concern about manufacturing workers. Still, such an outcome would only result from a prolonged strike, he said.

In 2002, a strike among workers at West Coast ports lasted 11-days before then-President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act and ended the standoff. However, the last time East and Gulf Coast workers went on strike, in 1977, the work stoppage lasted seven weeks.

“Conceivably, some manufacturing workers could be affected,” Kamins said. “That would be many months down the road. I’d be surprised if it gets to that point.”

ABC News’ Elizabeth Schulze contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — When a man claiming to own a vacant Randolph, New Jersey, investment property called real estate agent Lisa Shaw last summer, she thought it would be the start of another typical real estate transaction in the Garden State suburbs.

“He said he had this piece of property for over 25 years in Randolph, even though he had never been to Randolph,” Shaw told ABC News. 

She said she asked the man why he wanted to put this land on the market.

“He said, ‘Well, real estate is really high right now.’ He thought he could get the best dollar for it,” Shaw said. “He also told me his wife was ill and he needed the proceeds from that money for his wife’s illness.”

Shaw says she did not realize that not only did the man on the phone not actually own the property in question — but that this one phone call would ultimately connect that vacant lot to an alleged international crime web that authorities say involves fake documents ranging from Canada to Vietnam.

The incident is just the latest example of what the FBI says is a growing and troubling new form of fraud affecting unsuspecting landowners nationwide.

“Who would ever think that somebody would sell your own property from right under your nose, without your knowledge, and be able to dupe the system and everyone involved in that transaction?” Jim Dennehy, assistant director in charge of the FBI for New York, told ABC News Chief Business Correspondent Rebecca Jarvis.

‘No one suspected it’

Shaw, who has been selling properties in and around Randolph for more than two decades, says that after she spoke with the purported property owner, she asked him for documentation.

The man said that he and his wife were Canadian citizens living in England, and he provided a British address and copies of what appeared to be their driver’s licenses from the Canadian province of Ontario.

What Shaw didn’t know was that the property in Randolph was actually owned by a husband and wife from Texas. When the driver’s licenses arrived, they had the names of the real owners — just not their Texas address.

“Everything looked fine,” Shaw said, explaining that she proceeded to put the land up for sale and immediately received around 10 offers.

But the licenses turned out not to be fine. An official with Canada’s Peel Regional Police told ABC News that both identification cards were fake.

Although the licenses contained real addresses in the Toronto area, the owner of the home at one of those addresses told ABC News that she has no idea how her address ended up being listed on the fake identification card, and that she had nothing to do with an attempted property sale in New Jersey. The owner of the home at the British address, an attorney, said the same thing — but he suspected that scammers could have found his home address in England because he used to own property in Florida.

Back when the property in Randolph was getting ready to be sold, Shaw says no one involved detected that this was a scam.

“No one suspected it, not the attorneys, not myself, not the title company,” she said.

When the supposed property owner asked Shaw about the offers that had come in, Shaw said she told him that the highest one was for $140,000, and that he told her to immediately accept the offer.

Sale documents were soon prepared and the man provided paperwork that purportedly showed he had gotten the deed notarized at the U.S. embassy in Vietnam.

In December, the deal closed — all while the real property owners had no clue that the transaction had taken place. The supposed seller asked for the $140,000 payment to be split in half and sent to two different banks, according to Shaw.

But the title company encountered trouble while attempting to submit the second $70,000 payment.

“That set off the red flag,” explained Shaw, who said that the title company was then able to get in touch with the son of the real owners. “We knew it was definitely identity fraud.”

But by that point, it was too late. Shaw said that the initial $70,000 payment had already gone through, and the supposed seller had disappeared.

The buyer that paid $70,000 to the fraudulent seller is still listed in municipal and county tax records as the property’s new owner — but since the original owners did not authorize the sale, it remains unclear what will happen to the land now.

“It was a real shock to find out that people were devious [enough] to do this kind of thing,” Shaw said.

‘A lot of litigation’

ABC News has learned that the FBI is now investigating the alleged scammers who fraudulently sold the lot in Randolph — though the owners of the British and Canadian homes that were used as fake addresses said they have not yet been contacted by American law enforcement authorities. The FBI would not confirm or deny details of the investigation.

Dennehy, who was previously FBI Newark’s Special Agent in Charge, is urging owners of vacant land to remain vigilant and check their property records, as the bureau has reported a 500% increase in vacant land fraud over the last four years.

“It all comes down to due diligence on behalf of the buyer, the real estate agent, the title companies and beyond,” Dennehy said, explaining that scam artists pretend to be real landowners by using publicly accessible property information.

Dennehy cited another New Jersey case in which a property owner found out that her land was fraudulently sold when the new owner showed up with construction equipment.

The FBI is encouraging real estate agents and property owners who suspect fraud to contact authorities before money changes hands.

“It’s probably going to be a whole lot of litigation for many, many months and years to come, if that money is already gone,” Dennehy said. “Technically you’re no longer the owner of the property, so now it has to get into civil lawsuits, a lot of lawyers [with] a lot of litigation involved in order to try to reclaim what’s yours to begin with.”

‘Vacant land is very easy to steal’

As a result of these scams, real estate industry groups in parts of the country with large swaths of vacant land are issuing urgent warnings to their members.

“Vacant land is very easy to steal because not everybody is going to be checking up on a vacant piece of property once a month,” Emily Bowden, executive officer of the Sussex County Association of REALTORS in New Jersey, told ABC News. “Not everyone who owns that land necessarily lives in our area.”

Bowden said real estate agents should try to meet with sellers in person whenever possible, make sure that their mailing addresses line up, and assess how well sellers actually know the lay of the land that they are seeking to put on the market.

A desire to sell a vacant lot as quickly as possible can be suspicious, Bowden said, adding that real estate agents who do not do their due diligence when representing fraudulent sellers could face lawsuits.

Derek Doernbach, who sells properties on the Jersey Shore, says he was contacted by three purported sellers who he believes were actually scammers. He said that, as a result of his suspicions, he declined to list any of the three properties.

According to Doernbach, all of the supposed sellers sent him Canadian driver’s licenses containing the exact same picture and address as the license that was presented to Shaw by the alleged scammer in the Randolph case.

“Without a doubt, this has to be the same people, or it’s just a ring on the dark web that is circulating the same driver’s license around,” Doernbach said.

A year after she was first contacted by the alleged Randolph scammer, Shaw says she wants to make sure other real estate agents remain on the lookout.

“If you have a piece of property that someone wants to sell and it’s vacant property, really, really get your feelers up on that one because there could be a potential fraud,” she said. “It’s a very easy way that they’re doing this, and it’s successful. And nobody knows until after the fact.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — If you’ve opened Instagram over the last few days, you’ve likely seen a post that begins with the words “Goodbye Meta AI.”

The post, most often shared on Instagram stories, features black-and-white text warning of “legal consequences” and the use of artificial intelligence by Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Threads and Facebook.

“If you do not post at least once it will be assumed you are okay with them using your information and photos,” the text reads, in part. “I do not give Meta or anyone else permission to use any of my personal data, profile information or photos.”

Since early September, the message has been shared widely, even though it is a hoax.

More recently, when the message is shared on Instagram stories, it is blocked out by a warning that the message contains “false information.”

The warning directs users to a fact-check on the website LeadStories.com.

“Does posting a statement ensure that users of Meta services will not have their data used in Meta’s artificial intelligence training? No, that’s not true: Posting the viral statement, or any other statement, doesn’t mean that Meta will not use that data for AI training, but users in Europe can object via a form in their account settings,” the fact-check reads. “The statement is an example of “copypasta,” text containing information that’s often not true but which is repeatedly copied and pasted online.”

Meta describes generative AI as, “a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content when a person or business gives it instructions or asks it a question.”

When Meta announced its new generative AI features last year, the company detailed how and why it uses data for AI purposes.

According to the company, it pulls data for AI from users’ public posts, their interactions with AI features and publicly-available information from places like databases and search engines.

“We use public posts and comments on Facebook and Instagram to train generative AI models for these features and for the open-source community,” reads Meta’s public privacy policy. “We don’t use posts or comments with an audience other than Public for these purposes.”

The company does not appear to pull information from data for generative AI from user accounts that are set to private.

Meta did not reply to ABC News’ request for comment.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Much like its fellow fast food competitors slashing prices and offering special discounts to lure in customers, Arby’s is adding a new deal to its menu with its Double the Meats Meal.

For just $7, the new Double the Meats Meal includes a Double Roast Beef or Double Beef ‘N Cheddar sandwich, along with a medium fry and medium drink.

The Double Roast Beef sandwich boasts two times the amount of slowly roasted, thinly sliced-to-order, signature roast beef piled high on a toasted sesame seed bun.

The Double Beef ‘N Cheddar also piles on a double portion of roast beef, topped with cheddar sauce and zesty Red Ranch, served on a toasted onion roll.

The new deal comes on the heels of similar promotions and discounts from Arby’s competitors. In June, McDonald’s launched a $5 Meal Deal that includes a McDouble or McChicken sandwich, small french fries, a four-piece Chicken McNuggets and a small soft drink. Earlier this month, the fast food giant extended the popular deal through December.

Several other fast food chains including Burger King, Wendy’s, Starbucks and Taco Bell have rolled out comparable discounts, hoping to entice customers looking to stretch their dollars as much as possible.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump has raised few policies on the campaign trail more often than tariffs, which he says would rejuvenate manufacturing, create jobs, restrain immigration and help bankroll childcare, among other benefits.

In recent days, he has claimed another advantage of tariffs: They don’t require support from Congress. “I don’t need Congress, but they’ll approve it,” Trump said at a campaign event in Smithton, Pennsylvania, on Monday. “I’ll have the right to impose them myself if they don’t.”

Some economists have said higher tariffs could expand certain areas of U.S. manufacturing, but the policy risks rekindling inflation since importers would likely offset tax payments with higher prices. A potential trade war could hurt U.S. exporters and slow hiring, they said.

However, Trump is largely accurate in his description of the wide latitude enjoyed by the president in setting and implementing some tariffs, experts said. But, they added, Trump’s ambitious tariff agenda could test the limits of that authority, drawing court challenges and opposition from Congress with results that are difficult to predict.

“Will we get a reckoning if Trump gets elected and does what he says he wants to do?” Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who studies trade policy, told ABC News. “I think we’ll get one very quickly.”

In response to ABC News’ request for comment, a representative of the Republican National Committee pointed to remarks made by Trump at a campaign event in Georgia on Tuesday.

“The word tariff properly used is a beautiful word,” Trump said. “A lot of bad people didn’t like that word, but now they’re finding out I was right, and we will take in hundreds of billions of dollars into our Treasury and use that money to benefit the American citizens.”

“And it will not cause inflation, by the way. And you know, I took in from China hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes and tariffs, and I had no inflation. We didn’t have any inflation — 1.2% — we had essentially no inflation,” Trump added. (Inflation did not exceed 3% during Trump’s term in office. The pace of price increases fell to near-zero levels early in the COVID-19 pandemic before rebounding to about 1.3% at the end of his term, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.)

On the campaign trail, Trump has promised a sharp escalation of tariffs enacted during his first term. Trump has proposed tariffs of between 60% and 100% on Chinese goods. Envisioning a wide-reaching tariff policy, Trump has also proposed a tax as high as 20% on all imported products.

The Constitution affords Congress the power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties” as part of its remit to “provide for the common Defence [sic] and general Welfare of the United States.”

That section of the founding document granted Congress control over tariff policy, Inu Manak, a fellow for trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, told ABC News. But, in recent decades, the legislative branch has increasingly handed over such power to the executive.

“For more than 80 years, Congress has delegated extensive tariff-setting authority to the President,” the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan group made up of congressional staff, wrote in a February report.

During his first term, Trump invoked laws from that period to enact tariffs. Steel and aluminum tariffs drew upon national security powers afforded by a measure signed into law more than 50 years earlier. Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods depended upon a law from 45 years beforehand, which President Joe Biden invoked in service of tariffs of his own.

“Congress didn’t really push back,” Manak said.

Trump could use similar authority to move ahead with a plan for tariffs between 60% and 100% on Chinese products, experts said. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows the executive to gain temporary tariff authority in response to an adverse trade policy taken up by another country. Trump could use the measure to justify tariffs on China in a fashion resembling his first term, Lovely said.

“Probably yes,” Lovely added, though she noted that the time limit on the authority could require Trump to apply for a second round of approval from the Office of the United States Trade Representative, a government agency.

Universal tariffs of up to 20% on all imported goods would likely demand legal mechanisms with little or no precedent, experts said. Trump could declare a national emergency and draw upon the Trading with the Enemy Act, which includes emergency authority to impose tariffs. Then-President Richard Nixon used the law to impose a 10% tariff on all goods over a four-month stretch in 1971.

Trump could avail himself of another lever of power: The International Economic Emergency Powers Act. It allows the president to stop all transactions with a foreign adversary that poses a threat, which could include, in theory, a potential tax on imports, experts said. However, a set of universal tariffs would mark an unprecedented use of the 1977 law.

“All our trading partners pose an unusual, extraordinary threat?” Alan Wolf, a former deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization, said earlier this month in a blog post for the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “That would simply be too large a power grab to have been within what Congress intended in this statute.”

Trump could face court challenges that may reach as high as the Supreme Court, some experts said. The threat of such a move could also draw opposition from Congress, which could seek to repeal or amend the law.

“I don’t know if there would be enough pressure from Congress because as we saw last time, they went along with him,” Manak said.

The lack of close precedent makes it challenging to anticipate how Congress or the courts will act, Lovely said. Opposition could also come from foreign nations that impose retaliatory tariffs, straining some industries and prompting additional pressure on elected officials.

“There’s just a whole lot of uncertainty,” Lovely said.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations published a memo Wednesday including new details about Boeing safety failings relating to the Alaska Airlines door plug incident in January.

The memo — released ahead of Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Michael Whitaker’s planned testimony before the subcommittee on Wednesday — suggested Boeing had failed to ensure adequate standards in multiple areas.

Boeing personnel, the memo said, “continue to feel pressure to prioritize speed of production over quality.”

The Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines incident saw a door plug on flight 1282 blow out minutes after takeoff from Portland, Oregon, leaving a large hole in the side of the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane. The plane safely made an emergency landing and no one was seriously injured.

The memo noted the results of a May 2024 employee survey that found only 47% of workers answered favorably to the statement, “Schedule pressures do not cause my team to lower our standards.”

Training also remains a problem, the memo said. 

“Boeing is failing to ensure many of their employees have the appropriate education, training, skills or experience to effectively perform their assigned tasks,” it read.

The subcommittee said Boeing failed to ensure that nonconforming parts are appropriately documented, stored and dispositioned so that they are not installed on aircraft.

Quality inspection procedures — and FAA review of those procedures — also raised questions as to the qualifications and independence of inspectors, the memo said.

“Boeing personnel are allowed to inspect the quality of their own work,” it read.

“These troubling and recurring safety deficiencies raise questions about the FAA’s ability to oversee the quality and safety of Boeing aircraft through effective and lasting enforcement,” the memo said.

Wednesday’s memo and Whitaker’s testimony are part of a wider inquiry that began on March 19, investigating Boeing’s safety and culture practices following whistleblower allegations.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Inflation bedeviled the U.S. economy for years, but a cooldown in price increases has shifted concern toward a different foe: Unemployment.

Hiring remains solid but has slowed dramatically from a peak achieved during the nation’s rebound from the pandemic. The unemployment rate still hovers near historic lows but has climbed markedly this year.

A jumbo-sized interest rate cut at the Federal Reserve last week was viewed by some economists as an effort to fend off rising joblessness, even as Fed Chair Jerome Powell offered up reassurance. 

“The U.S. economy is in good shape,” Powell said.

Mixed signals sent by the nation’s labor market pose a high-stakes question for tens of millions of jobholders as well as millions of people seeking work: Where are conditions headed from here?

Economists who spoke to ABC News disagreed sharply about the outlook.

Some acknowledged a slowdown in recent months but dismissed worries about its implications, pointing to resilient job growth and other healthy metrics that suggest the economy continues to hum. Others, however, emphasized their concerns about the trajectory of labor conditions and what it indicates about potential layoffs.

“The job market is cooling but it has not frozen up,” Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, told ABC News. “This is a situation that’s seen as relatively stable but results may vary.”

Economists widely acknowledge that the labor market has slowed. That trend doesn’t come as a surprise after a years-long period of high interest rates, which typically weigh on economic activity and company hiring, some economists told ABC News.

In 2022, the pandemic rebound triggered a blazing-hot job market that saw employers add an average of nearly 400,000 jobs per month. Over a three-month period ending in August, employers added an average of about 116,000 jobs per month.

The unemployment rate has climbed this year from 3.7% to 4.2%, though it remains relatively low by historical standards.

The sky-high job growth was bound to slow, in part because the economy lacked room for expansion after employers had hired the workers they needed and a dwindling number of unemployed people remained on the sidelines, according to Valerie Wilson, a labor economist who runs the program on race, ethnicity and the economy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

“We expected job growth at some point to slow down,” Wilson said. “To me, that alone isn’t cause for concern.”

The uptick in unemployment isn’t cause for concern yet either, Wilson said, highlighting data that demonstrate strength in the labor market and across the wider economy.

The share of job holders between the ages of 25 to 54 — known as the “prime age” for workers — stands at a 23-year high. U.S. gross domestic product grew at a solid pace over three months ending in June, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data showed. A relatively low number of people has claimed unemployment benefits in recent weeks, suggesting few layoffs.

“I don’t think there’s an immediate cause for concern,” Wilson said.

Some economists disagreed. They pointed to a recession indicator known as the “Sahm Rule,” which says that a rise of 0.5 percentage points in the unemployment rate within a 12-month period typically precedes a recession.

“When it comes to the Sahm Rule, what you see in the data is when the unemployment rate starts rising, it usually has a lot of momentum and takes a while to stop,” Nick Bunker, economic research director for North America at Indeed Hiring Lab, told ABC News. “That’s the concern.”

The rule’s originator, former Fed economist Claudia Sahm, has questioned whether it applies in this case, in part because unemployment remains low.

Economists who are worried also pointed to data suggesting that the employment situation may not be as strong as some contend.

Despite low unemployment, more than 10% of Americans can’t find enough work, meaning for instance that they are working part-time but want full-time jobs or have fallen out of the labor force because they’ve stopped looking for work, Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, told ABC News.

“Rising unemployment is not just a blip,” Pollak said.

The exact path forward for the job market is difficult to predict, some economists said. Last week’s interest rate cut could help jumpstart economic activity, some noted; while others said such policy typically takes effect on a lag that will render it irrelevant in the near term.

“The future is uncertain,” Bunker said. “I wouldn’t say we’re moving in this great direction where everything will be completely fine. But I wouldn’t fall into the trap of saying there’s a rising unemployment rate so we’re certain to be in a recession soon.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The Federal Reserve handed down a large interest rate cut this week, dialing back the central bank’s fight against inflation and signaling welcome relief for borrowers.

It remains to be seen, however, whether the Fed will continue to lower rates and further ease the burden for people and companies saddled with loans.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), a policymaking body at the Fed, on Wednesday forecast further interest rate cuts.

By the end of 2024, interest rates will fall nearly another half of a percentage point from their current level of between 4.75% and 5%, according to FOMC projections. Interest rates will drop another percentage point over the course of 2025, the projections further indicated.

Speaking at a press conference in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the projections reflect expectations that the economy will sustain the same pair of trends that prompted the rate cut in the first place: falling inflation and rising unemployment.

“These projections, however, are not a committee plan or decision,” Powell said. “As the economy evolves, monetary policy will adjust.”

Experts who spoke to ABC News predicted that the Fed is all but certain to deliver at least one more interest rate cut this year, hewing fairly closely to its projection for the coming months. However, the experts voiced caution about the forecast for rate cuts next year, saying the path would depend on economic performance, which is difficult to anticipate.

“These long-term interest rates projections are almost never correct,” Derek Horstmeyer, a finance professor at George Mason University’s Costello College of Business, told ABC News. “There is a lot of uncertainty.”

The Fed is guided by a dual mandate to keep inflation under control and maximize employment. In theory, low interest rates help stimulate economic activity and boost employment, while high interest rates slow economic performance and ease inflation.

Inflation has slowed dramatically from a peak of about 9% in 2022, though it remains slightly higher than the Fed’s target of 2%. The FOMC expects the inflation rate to fall to 2.1% next year and to reach the central bank’s target of 2% by 2026, projections show.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate has ticked up this year. The FOMC expects that rate to also rise gradually next year, then hold steady over the following two years.

“If we stay on track with these projections, that’ll be great news,” Horstmeyer said. “It will be a signal that we pulled off a soft landing.”

The economy, however, may not perform as anticipated. A snag in the cooldown of inflation, or even an outright reversal, could prompt the Fed to pause its rate projected rate cuts, experts said. On the other hand, a greater-than-expected rise in unemployment or a possible recession could cause the Fed to cut rates faster than initially planned.

“If inflation has any surprise to the upside, it wouldn’t take much to see one of those projected cuts disappear,” William Luther, a professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University, told ABC News, referring to the two quarter-point rate cuts expected over the remainder of 2024.

A spike in unemployment, meanwhile, could prompt the Fed to revisit its plans for interest rates going forward, Luther added.

“If labor markets in particular were to show signs of deterioration over the next two months, we could see considerable revisions to the path of the federal funds rate,” Luther said.

On Wednesday, Powell acknowledged the flexibility of the Fed’s plans for rate cuts.

“We can go quicker if that is appropriate. We can go slower if that’s appropriate. We can pause if that’s appropriate,” Powell said. “This process evolves over time.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.