New York – President Donald Trump’s Tariff crusade He pointed to a series of foreign goods, from European wines and car parts from Mexico to Films made abroad. Lately, the wandering anger of the president has found another rhetorical child: toy dolls.
Trump said that children will be fine Have two dolls, perhaps three or five, instead of 30 if US import taxes increase consumer prices. The response in social networks included memes of him portrayed like the Grinch and the photos of a young man Barron Trump’s Mercedes convertible of child size.
“Completely out of contact”, the CEO of loyal subjects Jonathan Cathey, whose collectible toy company in Los Angeles produces Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brits Dolls, wrote in LinkedIn. “If that is not a moment of ‘Let Them Come Cake’ through the echoes of history? Love How toys and dolls have become the martyr metaphor for this incoherence of the tradeless trade war”?
The president’s comments also touched a nerve with the parents, both who were offended by the informal way that he raised the hypothesis that “two dolls will cost a couple more dollars” and those who recognized that their own children have more toys than they need.
Anyway, the United States toy industry has a lot to ride in possible decallation of the tariff confrontation between the Trump administration and the government in Beijing. Almost 80% of the Toys sold in the United States They come from China.
The toys association, A commercial grouphas pressed for an immediate relief of the rate rate of 145% The president put Chinese manufacturing products. Some toys companies warn the probability of holiday shortage Increase the rate every week remains in force.
Here is a snapshot of doll debate and how tariffs are impacting toys:
From Barbie, Bratz and cabbage children to children to the worship dolls, American girl And our generation, dolls are a big business in the US, as well as the beloved games.
The doll category, which includes accessories such as clothing, generated US sales of $ 2.7 billion last year compared to $ 2.9 billion in 2023 and $ 3.4 billion in 2019, according to the Circan Market Research firm.
Consumers wasted toys during the height of the Covid pandemic to keep the children And themselves Occupied, but sales were flattened as inflation seized the economy.
Younger girls Going more to buy makeup and skin care has also cooled the demand for dolls, said Marshal Cohen, the leading Circana Retail Advisor.
The nation’s largest toy manufacturer, Mattel said this week he would have to Increase the prices of some products It was sold in the USA to compensate for higher costs related to tariffs.
The company, whose brands include Barbie And American Girl said that the increases were necessary even though it is accelerating the expansion of its manufacturing base outside China.
It is expected that smaller toys companies have a more difficult time than Mattel and Hasbro, which makes the food baby, drink and wet diapers alive. Cathey said he stopped the shipments of loyal subjects from China in April because he could not pay the stratospheric rate in which they would have incurred.
“No one isolate themselves with so much effective,” he said.
With approximately four months of hand inventory, Cathey said that his ability to ensure vacation stock depends on a break in the commercial confrontation between the United States and China in the next two weeks, since it would take time for cargo operations to resume.
Cepia, a Missouri company behind the 2009 Christmas season, Zhu Zhu Pets, launched a 11 -inch fashion doll line called Dora Girlz last year. CEO James Russell Hornsby said he was working to relocate some production, but that the measure will not happen in time to replace the orders he planned to receive from China.
Hornsby described himself as a Trump supporter and said he understands the desire of the administration to reduce commercial imbalances.
“Let’s make the agreements and stop all this because (Trump) interrupts Christmas,” he said.
Although American Girl was launched in 1986 with a line based on fictional historical characters, dolls were never national products. They were made in Germany before production finally moved to China.
Toy experts say that, in addition to the lowest costs, Chinese factories have developed techniques and experience that are not easily replicated.
“We have no capacity in the US. To make rooted doll hair. And then you have things like faces. Some of them are hand painted, others have ended with a tampo machine (printing),” said James Zahn, editor in chief of the publication of the industry The Toy Book, of making dolls.
Hornsby said the synthetic hair at the heads of Decora Girlz Dolls is carried out by qualified workers in Guangzhou and Dongguan factories, China.
“Not only adheres to a machine and does it automatically,” he said. “You have to know what you are doing so that this doll seems to have a complete game of hair when literally, only 60% of the head is full of hair.”
The White House Cabinet Deputy Director Stephen Miller said that consumers would prefer to pay more for American manufacturing products. The dolls made in China could have lead paint in them, he said.
Teresa Murray, director of Consumer Surveillance of the United States Public Interest Research Group, said the image is more complicated.
The products for children 12 years or less require evidence and certification of third parties of the laboratories approved by the US Consumer Products Commission. UU., The agency responsible for enforcing lead levels in toys, Murray said.
The rules apply to all products sold in US toys. By the main brands such as Fisher-Price, Mattel, Hasbro and Lego, which have an external manufacturing for a long time to China, they generally meet, he said.
But the Increased online purchasesIncluding electronic commerce platforms that are directly sent to US consumers from abroad, a challenge has raised, according to Murray. When it was valued in less than $ 800, such plots entered the US tax free. And they were not subject to the same scrutiny as bulk imports, he said.
The White House eliminated customs exemption As of May 2 for low -value plots that originated in Continental and Hong Kong China. Customs and border protection of the United States expects additional supervision to facilitate the brand of problems.
Toy companies and industry experts argue that high rates on Chinese imports will tempt buyers sensitive to prices to look for cheap counterfeit toys that carry greater safety risks.
Many people agree that the culture of the American consumer has gone out of control, largely due to the prices that remain low through the work of workers of foreign factories who earn much less than what they would do in the United States.
Katie Walley-Wiegert, 38, a senior seller in Richmond, Virginia, and the mother of a 2-year-old son, agrees that there is too much materialism, but believes that parents should have options by deciding what is best for their children. He found unpleasant Trump’s rich comments.
“I think it is a small view of what purchase habits and realities are for people who buy toys for children,” Walley-Wiegert said.
Elenor Mak, a resident of San Francisco, who founded the Jilly Bing doll company after he could not find an American Asian doll for his daughter, Jillian, now 5 years, said that president’s comments bother her because some families fight to buy even a doll.
The commercial war with China “makes it even more impossible for these families,” Mak said.
