Author: openjargon

• Japan's weak currency is boosting tourism, with a record-breaking 3.1 million visitors in March.
• The devalued yen is encouraging tourists to spend more on luxury goods.
• The currency is negatively impacting outbound travel, with more Japanese tourists staying in the country.

Japan is a beloved tourist spot. A weak currency is ensuring that it will remain that way for foreigners.

The country just broke its pre-pandemic tourist record, with 3.1 million foreign visitors in March. The government said it's on track to surpass 2025's target of 32 million annual foreign visitors this year, after 8.6 million tourists visited in the first quarter of 2024.

Japan opened to tourists in October 2022, after over two years of strict, pandemic-induced border restrictions. Pent-up demand, combined with a cheaper currency, has fueled the record number of visitors.

Tourists are staying longer and spending more due to the weak yen, which makes it cheaper for foreigners to purchase accommodation, activities, food, and gifts. The yen has fallen nearly 10% year-to-date, compared to the dollar.

Japan's currency has been depreciating largely due to high interest rates in the US, which makes the dollar more attractive to investors. A historic rate hike in Japan last month — the first since 2007 — did little to reverse the downward trend.

Japan is a tourist hot spot because of its status as a culture and entertainment icon, its natural wonders, and its unique cuisine. Tourists from South Korea, China, Taiwan, and the US made up the biggest portion of foreign visitors in March, according to Japan's National Tourism Organization.

Japanese carriers like Japan Airlines and ANA plan to cash in on the tourism boom by running more routes from Asia.

The sharp decline of the yen has also expanded demand for luxury goods. Foreign tourists are taking advantage of the currency discount by snapping up cheaper products in Japan from premium brands such as Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer, Chanel, and Prada, Bloomberg reported earlier this month.

While the weak yen creates a sweet spot for foreigners, it is severely hurting Japanese travelers.

The number of outbound travelers was less than half the number of inbound travelers in March, per the National Tourism Organization. Outbound Japanese travel was down 37% last month compared to the same period in 2019, though it ticked up from February, the agency's data shows.

High airfare costs and low buying power is compelling more locals to skip international travel in favor of domestic locations.

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• US Adm. John Aquilino said China is gradually getting bolder and acting more dangerously.
• In an interview with FT, the INDOPACOM chief described the strategy as a 'boiling frog' tactic.
• As he's set to retire, Aquilino urged China's neighbors to be vocal about Beijing's aggression.

The US Indo-Pacific Command's outgoing chief said China has been turning up the heat on its neighbors with progressively bolder military actions in a pattern designed to catch them off guard.

Adm. John Aquilino described Beijing's strategy to the Financial Times as a "boiling frog" tactic, or to gradually step up aggression so that other nations don't immediately realize when a critical point in conflict is reached.

In an interview published on Sunday, he told the FT that these nations must speak up and call out aggressive behavior from Beijing.

"There needs to be a continual description of China's bad behavior that is outside legal international norms. And that story has to be told by all the nations in the region," he said.

Aquilino, who led US forces in the Indo-Pacific for three years, cited two major conflict points involving China — Taiwan and the Second Thomas Shoal.

Beijing has continually been posturing more aggressively toward Taiwan, which it claims as its territory.

Chinese leaders are shifting to more war-like rhetoric against the self-governed island, and regularly send dozens of fighter jets at a time across the median line of the Taiwan Strait. Balloons that Taiwan says are from China also often pass over the island's airspace.

While not seen as an outright act of war, the incursions are typically described as "grey-zone" warfare that forces a response from Taiwanese defenses and keeps its people on edge.

"This is the pressure campaign in action. I've watched it increase in scope and scale, it is not slowing down," Aquilino told the FT.

He said China has taken conflict one step further against the Philippines at the Second Thomas Shoal, a reef in the Spratly Islands of the South China Sea.

The islands are internationally recognized as under the Philippines' jurisdiction, but China has in recent years sought to enforce its own claim on them — coalescing into a key point of tension between both nations.

Since 2021, Chinese Coast Guard vessels were reported to have used water cannons on Philippine ships resupplying forces at the shoal. And in October 2023, a Chinese vessel rammed into a Philippine Coast Guard ship, widely seen as an escalation.

"Philippine coastguardsmen and service members have been injured. That's a step up the ladder beyond a pressure campaign," Aquilino said.

The admiral is set to retire after he hands leadership of the Indo-Pacific Command to Adm. Samuel Paparo next month. During his tenure overseeing the region, Aquilino repeatedly warned of China as a primary growing danger to its neighbors.

Paparo, on his part, has also named China as one of the most pressing threats to US military interests in the region.

Beijing has been sharply increasing its military spending, pumping $230 billion into its defense budget in 2022, per a 2023 Pentagon report. While the US defense budget was nearly four times as large as China's that year, military observers say a one-to-one comparison can be misleading because Chinese spending typically stretches further due to lower labor and manufacturing costs.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

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• Romance scams are rising on dating apps, costing Americans over $650 million in 2022.
• Match Group's CEO expressed empathy for victims, but said "things happen in life."
• An FTC lawsuit alleges up to 30% of daily Match.com sign ups are users utilizing the platform for scamming.

When it comes to getting your money back from a romance scam, it can be nearly an impossible task. Match Group's CEO said he feels bad for victims, but "things happen in life."

Romance scams typically targeting baby boomers and older generations are becoming increasingly popular on dating apps and websites, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Just last year, the FBI's Internet Crime Report estimated that Americans lost more than $650 million to romance scams. The FTC, which casts a wider net, reported that these scams also bilked a whopping $1.3 billion from Americans in 2022.

Bernard Kim, CEO of Match Group, spoke with CBS News on the growing threat of online romance scams carried out by people overseas. Match Group — which owns Match.com and Tinder — is the largest online dating company in the United States.

"Look, I mean, things happen in life," Kim told CBS when asked what he would tell customers who have fallen victim to scams. "That's really difficult. I have a tremendous amount of empathy for things that happen, but I mean, our job is to keep people safe on our platforms; that is top foremost, most important thing to us."

The FTC filed a federal lawsuit against Match Group in July 2022, alleging that "as many as 25-30 percent of Match.com members who registered each day were using Match.com to perpetrate scams," according to court documents.

A spokesperson for Match Group told Business Insider that the figures mentioned in the claim are misleading and that the court dismissed claims related to the number of sign-ups that may be related to fraud.

The spokesperson told BI that Match is working with law enforcement to combat scams and has been "one of the most vocal" companies in the space doing so.

"We've done several romance scam prevention campaigns," Match told BI. "We've done some pop-up messages within our apps, educating people on the common behaviors of scams and then also how to avoid them."

Scams carried out on Match included "phishing" to steal consumers' personal information and "sextortion scams," in which scammers trick a victim into sending compromising videos or pictures that they then use to extort money from the victim, the FTC lawsuit says.

According to authorities, retrieving stolen money after it's in the hands of scammers is extremely difficult, and victims typically do not recoup all of the money they lose in the process.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd in Florida said that authorities could only recover around $40,000 after thieves convinced a woman she had won a fake Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes. The thieves stole more than $400,000 from her.

"You go obtain subpoenas and then the bank takes their time about getting data back, the money is gone, long gone," Judd said in a press conference.

If you do pay money to a scammer, the FTC recommends asking whatever company you sent money through to help recover it if possible.

Match Group did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider.

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• Zubin Pratap, a former lawyer, decided to transition to the tech industry at 38 years old.
• He landed his first tech job by networking and shortlisting best-fit employers.
• Though he worked at Google, he said his big break was a small startup that took a risk on him.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Zubin Pratap, a software engineer based in Melbourne. It has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified his employment history.

I started law school in the late nineties.

By the time I graduated in 2003, the dot-com boom had happened, the dot-com bust had happened, Google had been invented, and the internet had become mainstream.

Seven years into my career, which took me from litigation to corporate law, and from India to Australia, I began taking an interest in tech.

I realized I was sitting far away from the sidelines of the tech industry and had no way to get in. I was doing well in my legal career, but it didn't align with who I was as a person: I was more interested in creating things than calculating risks and reviewing contracts.

Over the next few years, I tried various things: I worked on two startup attempts while in my full-time job, then switched to a business role within the company. I quit my job cold turkey to build a tech startup, which cost me six figures and ultimately did not work out.

I decided to restart my career, this time in tech. I was 38.

Foot in the door

While I had learned enough about software to run a small business, convincing someone to let me work for them was a different ball game.

Given the amount of competition in the industry and my non-computer science background, I knew I had to work hard to stand apart.

This is the four-step plan I used to land my first software job.

1. Spend time with people in the industry:

   I ditched networking on LinkedIn. I would try to meet people for coffee and put myself in places where developers and engineers congregated, such as conferences. The idea was to start learning the ways of the industry. Instead of asking them about skills I needed to learn and getting cookie-cutter answers, I asked people what they did every day. It gave me my biggest advantage — being able to speak to engineers in their language.

2. Identify employers that need someone like me:

   I focused on companies with fewer applicants and high turnover: those that are smaller, high-pressure, and don't pay as much as Big Tech.

3. Skip LinkedIn's "easy apply" function:

   Once I identified that small web development agencies fit the bill, I still had to convince them to take a chance on me. I showed up at their offices and asked if they were hiring developers. Talking to people in person or on the phone gave me a chance to embrace how "crazy" it was that I was an ex-lawyer switching careers at 38 and that I was risking a lot to work for them.

4. Build connections with recruiters:

   I realized that most people are nice to recruiters until they get what they need. After reaching out, I tried to keep in touch with recruiters. I messaged them every now and then and even picked up the phone to catch up or suggest good candidates I had met while networking.

   My efforts landed me four job offers, and I ended up taking one at a small software development firm in Melbourne, where I was based. I took a 75% pay hit from my last pay as a lawyer and started as a junior developer.

   Four rejections before a Google offer

   In a year and a half, I moved to a software engineering role at Google. I applied some of the same strategies: talking to lots of people and getting industry insight. Google had rejected me four previous times, thrice as a lawyer and once as a product manager, which were industries I was most experienced in. Landing an offer a fifth time around felt like a combination of effort and luck.

   I left Google after close to two years to work at a smaller company where I thought I could make more of an impact.

   My compensation recovered from leaving law and is now higher than my last pre-tech salary.

   Looking back, I know Google is the part of my journey everyone talks about, but my big break was the small company that hired me when I had no experience.

   Did you take a significant pay cut in your career and have a story to share about it? Email sgoel@businessinsider.com.

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• Reports say Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis met in Florida to discuss the former president's campaign.
• DeSantis decided to help Trump boost his fundraising efforts, The Washington Post reported.
• Florida real estate developer Steve Witkoff orchestrated the meeting, the Post reported.

Like many GOP presidential contenders before him, Ron DeSantis is bowing down to Donald Trump.

Trump is looking to DeSantis to help with his presidential campaign fundraising — and DeSantis is open to it, The Washington Post reported.

DeSantis and Trump met Sunday morning at the Shell Bay Club near Miami after not speaking to each other since the end of DeSantis' campaign in January, CNN reported. The pair engaged in a presidential campaign rivalry that involved a lot of name-calling — especially from the former president.

The New York Times and Politico also reported on the meeting.

Before DeSantis left the race in January, Trump zeroed in on his rival, mocking his name and referring to him as "Ron DeSanctimonious" and, reportedly, "Meatball Ron," which Trump has denied.

Trump has a history of getting his rivals in line behind him after some harsh burns. During the 2016 primary, Trump mocked the appearance of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's wife. Trump also helped spread a false story that Cruz's father passed out Fidel Castro pamphlets with Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who killed President John F. Kennedy.

Cruz later endorsed Trump for president.

Trump also mocked another former primary rival, making jokes about former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's weight. Christie also came around to endorsing Trump after bowing out.

Christie, who ran again in the 2024 presidential campaign, changed his tune this cycle and refused to endorse Trump after dropping out once again in January.

And when vocal Trump critic and former US Attorney General Bill Barr endorsed Trump for the 2024 ticket, he responded by mocking Barr while thanking him for the support.

According to the Post, although DeSantis endorsed Trump after dropping out of the GOP primary, the pair had not spoken since. DeSantis "was stung" by how the former president treated him during the campaign, the Post wrote, citing people familiar with the matter.

However, the Post reported that unnamed individuals close to the Florida governor felt he needed to make amends with the former president as DeSantis looked toward a potential 2028 bid.

One unnamed source told the Post that the deliberations between Trump and DeSantis on Sunday were friendly. DeSantis agreed to help the president with fundraising for his presidential campaign against Democratic rival President Joe Biden, the Post reported.

Another anonymous source told the Post that Florida real estate developer Steve Witkoff, who testified as an expert for Trump's defense during his Manhattan fraud trial last year, orchestrated the meeting between the distant pair.

Neither camp confirmed the meeting on social media.

Representatives for Trump, DeSantis, and Witkoff did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

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• For decades, Detroit was seemingly caught in an economic time warp that hobbled its full potential.
• But the city's downtown has one of the most stunning urban reinvention stories in the United States.
• Downtown Detroit recently hosted the NFL Draft to rave reviews and even broke an attendance record.

Last week, more than 775,000 football fans converged in downtown Detroit for three days as the city hosted the NFL Draft.

Detroit obliterated the previous draft turnout record set in 2019 when Nashville hosted roughly 600,000 fans across three days.

Campus Martius Park, perhaps the most revered public gathering space in Detroit, served as the centerpiece of the festivities.

Such positive developments are not atypical for Detroit these days. New residents continue to flock to residential developments downtown, and businesses occupy early-20th-century architectural gems that sprouted when the city was at its industrial zenith.

So, just how did this Midwestern city become a model for urban reinvention?

The past informs the present

In the 1980s and 1990s, downtown Detroit was a visible reminder of the "urban doom loop," when residents head for the exits and office towers empty out — leading to diminishing tax revenues that threaten core municipal services.

The legendary flagship location of Hudson's department store, beloved by generations of Detroiters, closed in 1983. The 1980s saw scores of layoffs in the automobile industry and the closing of numerous factories, causing economic strain in a region once known for its prosperity and its gateway to the middle class. Many small businesses either closed up shop or moved to the region's suburbs, a trend that continued into the 1990s.

But when the city of Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in July 2013, the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in US history, many wondered whether an economic comeback would ever be fully realized. At the time, even weekly trash pickup had become unreliable in many neighborhoods.

Now, the city is seemingly in its best economic position in decades.

Detroit beat out Miami as the fastest-appreciating housing market in the country last November, with home prices rising by 8.7% year-over-year, according to a CoreLogic report.

People want to live in the city

The allure of walkable neighborhoods, public transportation, green spaces, and businesses catering to local needs is something that many millennials and Gen Zs have embraced with open arms — but it's also a quality attractive to many boomers headed into retirement.

Downtown Detroit has an abundance of towering, historic buildings that are perfect for office-to-housing conversions and office renovations that have taken hold in downtowns across the country.

Dan Gilbert, the cofounder of Rocket Mortgage (formerly Quicken Loans) and a Detroit native, has poured billions into the city's downtown to revitalize the area.

Gilbert's real-estate firm, Bedrock Detroit, is building a 45-story mixed-use skyscraper at the site of the old Hudson's department store. When completed, the development will be home to General Motors' new global headquarters, a five-star hotel, and high-rise residences.

GM is currently headquartered at the 1970s-era Renaissance Center, a Detroit icon. While the company's move from the Renaissance Center has certainly raised questions about the complex's future, GM is staying in the city. GM's future headquarters, which will be even closer to the residential buildings sprouting up downtown, is poised to continue contributing to the city's vitality.

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• China's EV market has become increasingly competitive.
• About 123 car companies sold electric vehicles, an auto consultant told WSJ.
• But only a few brands keep Tesla's dominance in China at bay.

Competition in the electric vehicle sector is only getting stiffer for Tesla in China, but what does that space exactly look like?

Here's one stat that Stephen Dyer, an auto consultant at AlixPartners, told The Wall Street Journal: In 2023, about 123 auto companies sold an electric vehicle in China.

To put that into perspective, US News listed over 65 car brands in the US in 2023, some of which may have left the country when the list was published.

That's a lot of companies trying to wedge their way into the EV market, and a large part of that is thanks to the Chinese government.

As Business Insider's Linette Lopez noted in February, automakers received a huge lift from Beijing as it doled out government subsidies to any car company that would contribute to the country's pivot to electric vehicles.

Lopez wrote that China began to slow down the subsidy pipeline in 2016, but that doesn't mean support completely dissipated.

The Germany-based Kiel Institute for The World Economy published in an April report that BYD, China's top EV automaker, received more than $2.2 billion in subsidies in 2022.

Massive government support only encouraged the uptick in EV production and a price war that Tesla has largely stayed out of — to the company's detriment.

Still, Tesla remains one of the country's top EV sellers, and only a few brands compete with the US-based automaker.

Dyer, the auto consultant from AlixPartners, told the Journal that only four EV makers sold more than 400,00 vehicles in China each in 2023: BYD, Aion, Wuling, and Tesla.

The latest quarterly earnings reports for 2024 show that Tesla remains the global leader in the EV space, selling about 387,000 vehicles, compared to BYD, which reported selling about 300,114 EVs.

The competition, however, comes amid a slowdown in EV sales that's being felt in the US and China.

While US consumers continue to search for a cheaper EV alternative, China faces a more complex situation, BI's George Glover noted, that factors in frustrating price wars and a broader faltering economy caused by deflation and a real-estate slump.

Tesla and BYD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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• Harvard researcher Dr. David Sinclair is facing backlash in the longevity community.
• Critics argue that he took claims about "reverse aging" too far, The Wall Street Journal reported.
• Longevity medicine is attracting billions in investment from the world's wealthiest execs.

Harvard researcher Dr. David Sinclair has found himself at the center of controversy within the longevity community. 

Sinclair has been a poster child of the longevity movement for years. He's built several biotechnology companies focused on reversing the effects of aging, won acclaim for his research, and cultivated a loyal base of fans who swear by his lifestyle tips.

He's also earned his share of critics who say his research isn't always backed up by sufficient evidence. But over the past months, The Wall Street Journal reported that Sinclair has been battling a new level of backlash from colleagues and researchers who say his claims on curing aging have gone too far.

A matter of semantics?

The controversy began on February 29, when Sinclair's dog-supplement company, Animal Biosciences, issued a press release.

"I am very proud of the teams at NCSU and Animal Biosciences, who, after years of collaborative research and a clinical trial, have developed the first supplement proven to reverse aging in dogs," Sinclair said in the release, according to Newsweek.

Sinclair contends that he was misquoted. "The actual quote that I had approved was 'proven to reverse the effects of aging in dogs,'" he told the Journal, adding, "I felt this was a reasonable statement." 

Scientists rushed to contest the claim. "The data is not good, you're calling it the wrong thing, and then you're selling it," Dr. Nir Barzilai told the Journal. "The selling is a step too far." Dozens of scientists resigned from The Academy for Health and Lifespan Research — a nonprofit organization of longevity researchers that Sinclair cofounded and headed as president. 

Dr. Matt Kaeberlein — a biologist who was among the throng of resignees — described Sinclair on X as the definition of a "snake oil salesman." 

Sinclair resigned from the Academy in March, the Journal reported based on an email circulated by the Academy. Barzilai has since taken over as president.

Dr. Sinclair did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Animal Biosciences reissued a press release walking back the "reverse aging" claim. But scientists in the field say the issue is even more fundamental: There's no way to reverse aging, much less measure it.

The concept of biological age — the true age that our cells, tissues, and organ systems appear to be, based on biochemistry, according to the National Institute on Aging — is gaining traction in longevity circles. Yet, it's still a fuzzy and controversial concept because there's no standard for normal aging. The way we age varies a lot from person to person. 

Experts working to standardize longevity medicine say it could take years before it'll be recognized as an official field like cardiology or neurology, according to the MIT Technology Review. "This is a new field," Andrea Maier of the National University of Singapore and cofounder of the private "high-end" Chi Longevity clinic told MIT Technology Review. "We have to organize ourselves; we have to set standards."

Still, billions of dollars are being funneled into research. Longevity startups drew a global investment of more than $5.2 billion in 2022, according to PitchBook. And those backed by the world's wealthiest executives like Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel are dedicated to studying cellular aging — and its cures. That means debates about the semantics of aging will only become more relevant to our daily lives.  

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• Costco sells an estimated $200 million worth of gold and silver bars per month.
• Gold expert Taylor Huff says with the popularity, some buyers might not know what to expect.
• Huff recommended three things Costco shoppers should keep in mind when buying gold.

Gold and silver bars are some of Costco's hottest items this year, with the warehouse club selling through its supplies to the tune of $200 million a month.

Each new batch of gold bars sells out "within a few hours" of being released for a small mark-up over its spot price.

The Wall Street Journal reported that some buyers have been getting a crash course in commodity trading as they try to make a quick profit on their gold stash.

But gold expert Taylor Huff, CEO of My Gold Advisor, says that's the wrong approach.

"Some people will just go buy gold from Costco, even though they don't know why they're buying it, or what to do with it," he said.

Huff shared his top three tips that shoppers should remember when buying gold.

1: Gold is for saving, not quick profit

"You don't buy physical gold to flip a profit. You buy physical gold to store wealth and to protect what you've earned," Huff said. "You're trading out your dollars for a physical asset outside of the banking system."

Gold appreciates at around 8% per year on average, according to JPMorgan, which makes it popular among those seeking a hedge against inflation.

But that also means buyers should plan to hold onto any physical gold they buy for a minimum of one year, and preferably much longer. Huff said.

An increase of 8% would also help cover any discounts or expenses necessary to sell the gold for cash since dealers don't always pay spot prices.

2: Start researching dealers early on

While waiting for gold to appreciate, Huff recommends researching and connecting with reputable dealers who would buy the bars at a fair price.

This can be especially helpful if circumstances require an earlier-than-planned selling of the gold stash.

"Whenever the time comes, you already have that in your back pocket. You've already vetted them out and know the process," he said.

In addition, Huff said silver makes a nice complement to gold for a for a simple investing strategy.

"A ratio that we watch is the gold to silver ratio," he said. "When gold becomes cheaper relative to silver, you could sell some of your silver or trade some of your silver for gold and flip-flop your portfolio that way."

3: Keep it safe

While silver can take up a lot of space, Huff said gold is surprisingly compact.

"You could fit a million dollars worth of gold in two hands," he said.

To secure smaller stashes, Huff said a small fireproof safe — preferably bolted to the floor — is likely sufficient. A fully insured self-storage unit is also a reasonable option.

Larger holdings can be kept at private depositories that specialize in precious metals and collectibles and include insurance.

"The approach should be that you never want to sell it. You never want to spend your savings, and gold should be approached that same way," Huff said.

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• Williams-Sonoma must pay $3.1 million after the FTC sued it over a violation. 
• The FTC requires retailers to be truthful about whether their products are made in the United States.
• FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said Williams-Sonoma used "deception."

Williams-Sonoma will pay $3.1 million after settling with the US government over accusations of falsely labeling products manufactured in foreign countries as "Made in USA."

The Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Justice announced the home essentials company's civil penalty in press releases shared on Friday. According to the FTC and DOJ, Williams-Sonoma violated a 2020 order requiring retailers to be transparent about whether products they sell are made in the US. A July 2021 FTC press release notes that the order was implemented to discourage fraud.

The DOJ filed a complaint against Williams-Sonoma on April 24 following a referral from the FTC.

"The FTC sued Williams-Sonoma in 2020, charging that the company advertised multiple product lines under its Goldtouch, Rejuvenation, Pottery Barn Teen, and Pottery Barn Kids brands as being all or virtually all made in the USA when they were not," the press release said.

Court documents attached to the press release showed that Williams-Sonoma admitted the allegations brought forward in the complaint were true. Williams-Sonoma agreed to a settlement, which the FTC said is the largest in a "Made in USA" case so far.

The press release said the FTC learned Williams-Sonoma was advertising mattress pads at Pottery Barn Teens as "Crafted in America from domestic and imported materials" despite being made in China.

"In numerous instances, those mattress pads were wholly imported from China," the court document reads.

The FTC investigated and found six other products being falsely advertised as American-made.

Williams-Sonoma has also agreed to stop using "deceptive claims and follow Made in USA requirements," the press release said.

FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said Williams-Sonoma's business practices had a negative impact on consumers.

"Williams-Sonoma claimed its products were made in the United States even though they were made in China," she said in a statement. "Williams-Sonoma's deception misled consumers and harmed honest American businesses. Today's record-setting civil penalty makes clear that firms committing Made-in-USA fraud will not get a free pass."

The company will be required to submit annual compliance certifications.

Representatives for Williams-Sonoma did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Williams-Sonoma is on the upswing despite this latest setback.

In Williams-Sonoma's Q4 and 2023 fiscal year results report, the company's president and chief executive reflected on their growth.

"We outperformed in 2023 despite the slowest housing market in several decades and geopolitical unrest. Although this pressured our top-line trend, we stayed focused on full-price selling, supply chain efficiencies, and best-in-class customer service," she wrote. "We have transformed our business model and as a result, we delivered an operating margin well ahead of our pre-pandemic profitability."

MarketBeat reported in March that the company's stock rose because of "persistent outperformance and quality business."

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