How are the tensions in Minneapolis affecting its economy?
This tragedy occurred as a result of a deliberate and hostile resistance in Minnesota.
Latinos aren't here shopping.
Drivers are afraid.
The risk for us is really scary.
It's World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I'm Rahul Tandon.
How do you run a company when some of your staff are too frightened to come to work?
We'll find out.
And the French Parliament debates banning social media for children under 15.
That's a sound we've been hearing a lot of here on the BBC World Service, because there have been large protests in the US city of Minneapolis, despite temperatures being as low as minus 25 degrees Celsius.
That, of course, follows the shooting dead of another US citizen by ICE agents sent by President Trump to remove illegal immigrants.
The BBC's Tom Bateman has been on the streets of Minneapolis.
It really feels like a standoff now between this Democrat city and the Trump administration.
It represents a much wider story about... the battle for contemporary America.
A Trump administration that says it's delivering on its elected pledge to carry out a mass deportation campaign, accusing people here of inciting an insurrection.
And the protesters and the Democrats here saying that they are seeing their city occupied by agents geared up more for war than carrying out immigration enforcement.
Some of the background for you there.
Here on World Business Report, we wanted to focus on the economic impact of all of this, because this area is an extremely important business hub.
It's home to more than 15 Fortune 500 companies, as well as a number of large private companies, and the CEOs of of both the public and private companies, including retailers like Best Buy and Target, have now signed an open letter calling for the de-escalation of the tension.
So how is it affecting the local economy?
We've been speaking to Melissa Silva.
She's the CEO of El Burrito Mercado, a Mexican marketplace in St.
Paul's, Minnesota.
Since the beginning of the year we started to see things slowly take a decline as things precipitated over the year.
And then, of course, towards the end of the year, with the influx of presence of ice actually in the streets here.
So November and December were not our typical month.
And we definitely saw a loss in sales this last year.
Things got very difficult.
We started...
Reducing production, reducing inventory.
Sometimes we shortened store hours.
Bring us to right now.
If Minnesotans weren't showing up for us in the way that they have these last several weeks...
We would very likely be open very, very limited hours, if at all.
We're short staff.
We're only open from 11 to 7.
As a matter of fact, today the restaurant is closed because I don't have enough staff.
The deli is pretty bare because we don't have production.
When you say you don't have enough staff, why is that?
Explain to our listeners why you don't have enough staff.
Yeah, so everybody's terrified.
I mean there's been a lot of people judging when I make that comment, saying that well, if they were doing things right, if they had documentation, they don't know.
You can understand why people say that, though, can't you?
Of course, but that's not necessarily the reality.
I mean, I'm a U.S. citizen.
I was born and raised here.
My family are all U.S. citizens.
My husband is a resident and he's a general contractor and none of them are working.
None of them are going out.
So it's not.
It's that to make that blanket assumption that because people aren't going to work has not has nothing to do.
I mean, there are white people.
There are Caucasian people afraid to be in the streets right now in Minnesota.
On that.
So you've got a problem with staff.
In that a lot of people are not coming and customers as well.
Customers are not coming.
They're not coming either.
I think that and this is the part that makes me very emotional is that so?
When my parents started this business, it was because at the time there were hardly and there still aren't a lot of Latinos here, but there were really hardly any in St.
Paul in 1979.
Right.
So when they did this, it was out of a need and a desire to serve an underserved community.
They missed flavors from home.
So they started this tiny grocery market, and it was for our people.
And so the fact that right now, I love how Minnesotans are showing up.
I hate that I don't see my regular customers.
I hate that I don't see Latinos in here.
Do you worry now, as you look to the economic future of Africa, a city that you are so much a part of, that that future may look bleak at the moment.
Because when people look at what's going on, whichever side you're on of the political fence, people won't want to invest in your city, will they?
Mm-hmm, exactly.
Yeah, we have this conversation as a family frequently.
What do these next... We're literally breaking it down into phases.
Let's get through this.
Let's survive.
Let's try and continue to provide jobs for employees, so that some people are, So that we can survive right.
And then let's just Let's see how this evolves and then decide what's next for our family's business.
Is there a possibility...
If things don't improve, this business, yeah, you'll have to close.
Yeah, we'd have no choice but to close.
And it's because it's a whole trickle effect.
It's if Latinos aren't here shopping if vendors.
I've even had struggle with some vendors because drivers are afraid to do deliveries.
And we specialize in Mexican Latino groceries.
Of course, we work with Mexican Latino wholesalers.
And it's been a whole domino effect.
And so the risk for us is really scary.
Every day I wake up, maybe this is the day that they pull out.
Maybe this is the day they pull out.
And even then, I think, what does it look like?
Are people really going to come back and shop in the same way?
I feel so pessimistic about it.
It just breaks my heart.
This is a legacy that our parents left for us.
It's all they wanted.
Like every immigrant family wants, is to provide their children, provide their family, a better future.
That is the story, isn't it, of why so many people come to the U.S.
Is there any bit of you that looks at this and understands the action that is being taken to try and remove people who shouldn't be in the US?
?
I believe that there needs to be, I believe in policy and procedure.
I'm not a politician.
I don't know what the best, what that's supposed to look like.
I do know as a human being, what's happening here should not be happening.
I don't believe that what is occurring is the process.
There is no process.
This is chaos.
This is violence.
And this isn't just violence against people, against humanity.
This is violence against whole communities.
This is economic violence.
I mean, every aspect in our community, in our society is being impacted in a negative way.
So this is not the process.
I believe that there can be a process, but this is not it.
Melissa Silva there.
Let us bring in a couple of other voices into the conversation.
I'm going to hear from Peter Jankowskis, who joins us regularly on the program in a minute.
But firstly I want to bring in Adam Dunnick, who is the CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Association.
It was a very striking interview for us.
Somebody who really there, you know, Melissa could well lose her business if things don't improve.
I presume, Adam, you're hearing many conversations like that.
I am, and my heart goes out to Melissa.
Her restaurant is right down the street from where my children go to school, to middle school.
And so I know Burrito Mercado well and I know of the other institutions like hers around Minneapolis, St.
Paul, the whole region that have been impacted by the last couple weeks the surge in immigration and custom enforcement, violence agents and it's having a huge impact on our community.
It's having an impact on our safety and on our economic well-being.
And I think it's hard to watch.
It's also hard to quantify.
So somebody like myself.
We're trying to put dollar figures on what this means every day for a general manager or an owner of a business to lose tens of thousands of dollars, if not more.
But it's having a huge impact.
Let's try and put some numbers on it.
We like to do that on this program.
When you talk to Particularly the hospitality industry.
What sort of decline have they seen in business?
Give us a percentage figure.
Yeah, it's anywhere from 50 to 80 reductions on a month which, for everyone that knows hospitality in January is typically one of the worst months, if not the worst month of the year, for a restaurateur or anyone in the hospitality and events business.
So it's already a slow time, and it's been exacerbated by the chaos here.
Just stay with us.
I want to bring Peter Jankowskis in to the conversation.
We're using these as Minneapolis and St.
Paul's.
They're part of the Twin Cities, aren't they, in Minnesota, the state, Peter?
And this is a powerful economic area, isn't it?
It is, yes.
Certainly you have a number of large established companies retailers, Target Best Buy, as you indicated, leading banks located there as well.
So, It's an area that's accustomed to having a healthy business environment within the city.
Adam, tell us a little bit about the area.
Are all areas affected?
Are people not going out in most areas of St.
Paul's and Minneapolis?
Yeah, there's certainly neighborhoods within Minneapolis and St.
Paul, cultural districts are typically how we refer to them, but Central Avenue, Lake Street, certain neighborhoods that are harder hit than others,
But, you know, somebody at my primary jurisdiction is downtown Minneapolis.
It's, you know, it's home to 500 plus employers when people are fully in the office.
It's right around 200,000 workers coming downtown every day.
And those numbers are having an impact.
So less workers in the office means less workers going to restaurants and going to shows.
So it's having a spillover effect in the entire city.
Hotels are particularly feeling the hurt, as are retailers, too.
Sales percentage is down, foot traffic is down and it has this downward pressure where if you don't have to take a trip, if you don't have to be outside your home whether that's going to school or work or a service you just aren't out.
Peter, once a place gets a reputation, rightly or wrongly and I was talking to Adam before.
As we often do on this programme, we have a quick conversation beforehand, before the interviews take place.
Adam was telling me about some conventions that were being cancelled in the area.
It's difficult to recover from that, doesn't it?
Business doesn't like chaos.
Investment could be a problem moving forward here, Peter.
It could potentially, yes.
We've seen some aspects of that here in Chicago.
Certainly, we had a fair amount of unrest here in the 2020 timeframe.
And just recently, local hotels have agreed to increase the tax rate so that they can fund a campaign to encourage more people to come to visit Chicago.
So you know, it's not that these problems are insurmountable, but they do require resources to to turn things around.
Is that something you're thinking about, Adam?
Are you having conversations about the future?
I mean hopefully at some point, and there are far more constructive talks, it seems, between the president and Governor Walsh this evening.
But that long term damage, how do you avoid that?
It's going to take a significant effort from all parties, from leaders like the business community, from elected leaders, from community leaders.
What I hope emerges is – and I think there is a difference between five or six years ago, when the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd took place.
There's a coming together of our community, and how can we have a unity and a message of positivity that emerges once we do get past this darkness which I – know that we will?
The difference is there was some internal reckoning that had to happen between the community and the police department and certain activities that happened.
I think that there can be a story told about Minneapolis' resilience, of standing up for each other, taking care of neighbors and trying to create the community that we want for the future.
I'm optimistic about it, but I am an optimist by nature.
You've told us already your word.
Just final thoughts from you on that.
George Floyd.
A lot of our listeners will remember what happened in Minneapolis following his death there in 2020.
Does this feel different?
Is the business impact different this time?
Yeah, the similarities are the world got to watch.
Well, things that should never, ever have happened on somebody's video recording.
That's the similarities.
The difference to me is how businesses are stepping up, how community members are pulling together.
And I do think that that's the difference.
The impacts to businesses are different.
There haven't been violence.
There hasn't been burning down of buildings and damage to properties.
There's been...
The little bit that's been reported on that front has been a couple of incidents of vandalism.
But by and large, it's been peaceful protests and people pulling together.
Listen, thanks very much for joining us.
We're going to keep in touch with you if you don't mind and see how.
Businesses either recover or continue to suffer over the course of the next few weeks.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Peter Jankowski is still with us.
Peter, President Trump obviously busy with events there, also busy with his favorite word in the dictionary, tariffs.
He's raised the tariffs.
On South Korea.
In a social media post he said he would increase tariffs on cars lumber, farm and all other reciprocal tariffs from 15 to 25 percent because the Korean legislature had chosen not to enact their trade agreement.
Surprised at this, Peter?
Not really.
It's pretty much his standard operating procedure.
If he doesn't get what he wants, he resorts to tariffs.
And I think the tariffs were reduced with the anticipation that that agreement that had been agreed to late last year would go through.
And he is trying to apply some pressure to make them sign on the dotted line to what they agreed on.
Is there a danger sometimes that he does use them? as pressure, and sometimes it works.
But if you use it too much, that impact begins to decline.
Indeed, it certainly has less of a shock value, if you will.
And people recognize the fact that he does change his mind frequently and back down from these things.
So they lose their ability to affect long-term behavior when it comes to the fact that people start to think that they can just wait it out.
Peter, don't go anywhere.
We're going to talk about social media in a minute.
You're with World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
Let's turn to that story now, because lawmakers in France have taken the first step towards banning social media for under-15s.
The bill, which was discussed today, accuses social media companies of monetising children.
Clara Chabaz is the former Minister for Digital Affairs.
She gave her views during a visit to a school near Paris.
All the young girls were saying, of course we have to do it, because we're fed up with being trapped in these social networks and we're telling the platforms that their time is up.
If they don't protect young people, we'll do it for them, and I can't wait for this law.
But how would it work?
Here's our Paris correspondent, Hugh Schofield.
What it's going to do is make it an offence for the social media networks to provide services to children under 15.
The way it'll work, it seems, is that there'll be a sort of blacklist of networks which are deemed by the regulator to be harmful, and they will be banned for children under 15.
And then there'll be a second list of ones that aren't quite so bad according to the regulator, where parental authority will be required.
And, of course, hand in hand with this will be some kind of system of checking, age check verification which the networks will be obliged then to put in place.
Peter, we're going to hear from another voice in France in a minute.
But this gets to what is a challenge facing many governments.
How do you regulate these tech companies, which are worth billions and billions of dollars?
Well, yes, it is a major problem.
They have a lot of resources to figure out ways around whatever restrictions are put in place.
They certainly have a lot of resources to actively lobby the government and other organizations that are trying to rein them in.
So there's a different disparity in terms of the ability to influence what's going on here.
Peter, stay with us.
We wanted to bring in the voice of somebody who's not sure that this new law is the best idea.
Angèle Lefranc is an advocacy officer at the Fondation pour l'Enfance, an organisation dedicated to child protection and education in France.
We have mixed feelings regarding this bill.
The fact is that minors are at risk online, not only on social media, but also online messaging apps, on streaming platforms, online games, etc.
And various risks like grooming, sexual extortion, cyberbullying.
And we are really worried today because risks keep emerging and increasing.
And we see why banning access to social media can be a tempting solution can be seen as the miracle solution to finally protect children online.
But in our opinion, protecting minors cannot rely solely on banning access to social networks.
According to us, the only effective approach would be the implementation of an ambitious structured, long-term and coherent public policy really focused on prevention.
When you talk about prevention...
That must mean that the companies have to do more.
We are in favour of real and strong accountability for companies.
They are responsible for protecting our children.
And so we expect the government but not only the government, obviously the European Union and all countries to regulate companies and make them accountable for protecting children by moderating the contents, by removing violent contents.
Why do you think they're not focusing on that and saying instead let's put the onus on parents and children and ban social media for under 15s?
Do you think these companies have, to some extent, become too powerful now, too wealthy?
Companies have become powerful and now our countries are committed to make them more accountable.
And it's complicated for a single country, or just a few countries, to impose that kind of pressure on tech companies.
If it was to come into law, would it work?
Because from what we're seeing in Australia, it doesn't work that well, does it?
There are many ways around it.
We cannot say that it wouldn't work at all, but children and teenagers will find a way to circumvent.
And we see that in Australia, as you said, they use their older friends' IDs.
They put on makeup to look older.
They find ways to once again to circumvent the rules, or they just go to other platforms and sometimes maybe less regulated platforms.
We talk a lot and rightly so, don't we?
And you said it yourself about the challenges and dangers that social media can pose to children.
But it isn't all bad either, is it?
The digital world is part of our world and children are part of it, and they have the rights to be part of the digital world as much as they have the right to be part of the real, if I may say so, world.
And we have the obligation to respect those rights and to make sure that those rights are effective.
And we must respect the rights of children and teenagers to expression, to be informed, to talk together on social medias to get the news as well.
And we need to make sure that the digital space is being built around children's rights.
Peter, it's going to be interesting this, isn't it?
Because we know Donald Trump doesn't like the Digital Services Act that the EU is bringing in.
And he may well see this as an attack on American companies, because most of the companies we're talking about are US owned, aren't they?
Yes, and he's certainly shown a willingness already to stand up for those companies and what they are doing and preventing additional taxation of those companies.
Yep.
Let us see what happens there.
That is a story that will continue.
And I'm sure it'll be interesting to see if other countries decide that they want to follow the line that Australia started.
That France looks like it's going down as well.
Let us return to the region of North America, because a deadly winter storm is battering across the United States and Canada.
Twenty people have died and hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses are now without power.
Almost half of all states have declared a weather emergency on Stormfern, with heavy snow, freezing temperatures and wind chills as well.
This farmer and rancher, Stephen McBee in Missouri, centres this.
Hey there, Stephen McBee here.
We are in northern Missouri, so we're in the Midwest.
We are dealing with high winds, cold temperatures and snowfall, which does make it challenging to have cattle.
You have to make sure that they have access to water.
We're breaking ice every single day making sure our animals have plenty of water to drink.
The water actually helps them keep warm, making sure they have plenty of access to food, making sure they're getting the calories they need to thermoregulate and keep the same temperature even in these cold temps.
And then also making sure we provide wind blocks and protection from bedding.
So we're putting plenty of hay on the ground to allow the animals to have some sort of thermal mat.
There we go.
Stephen McBee in Missouri, farmer and rancher there clearly.
Peter, a very challenging time for him.
I know that you're here to talk about U.S. economy, global economies, global business matters.
The weather, let's start with that.
I mean, how bad is this storm, do you think?
Well, it's been quite cold here in the Chicago area.
We've basically been below 10 degrees Fahrenheit, which would be in the neighborhood of minus 15 Celsius for international viewers, pretty much continuously for the last three or four days. likely to continue for the same amount.
Personally, I just try to schedule my visits to the store or filling up my gas tank for those brief moments when we have warmer temperatures and minimize the amount of time I'm spending outside.
I'm very fortunate that my power is not interrupted at all through this.
I know that other areas are dealing with with power outages, which is very significant obviously when you can't keep your home warm.
No and yeah, and obviously for businesses it's a crucial factor, isn't it, in continuing to operate?
It's interesting, isn't it, Peter?
We bring you on here to talk about economic affairs.
And increasingly, we're talking to you as well about the weather and their impact on the US economy.
Indeed, indeed.
You know, it truly is a much more significant issue than it has been in the past.
Though in some ways, efforts to fight climate change have contributed to some of these issues too.
It's created power networks that are less reliable for people.
It's just hard to find a solution that truly works, if you will, for everyone.
Yeah, it's a challenge not just facing the U.S., it's a challenge that's facing many countries.
Of course we will, here on the BBC World Service, continue to monitor the impact of that winter storm across the US.
But that is it for this edition of World Business Report.
