By Anne d’Hynenzio and Didi Tang
NEW YORK (AP) – President Donald Trump’s tariff crusades aim to do a number of foreign products, from Mexican European wine and car parts to films made overseas. Recently, the President’s Wandering Wrath found another rhetorical poster child, a toy doll.
Trump argued that if taxes raise consumer prices it’s okay for kids to have two dolls (probably three or five) instead of 30 people. The social media reaction included his memes, depicted as a photo with a young Baron Trump’s child-sized Mercedes Convertible Grinch.
“We’re not in full contact,” Jonathan Cathy, the CEO of the loyal subject that produces a collectable toy company in Los Angeles, wrote on LinkedIn. “If it’s not the moment when filming an echo of history ‘feed them with cakes’, I love how toys and puppets became the martyr’s peculiarity of this pointless trade war contradiction. ”
The president’s comments also touched on nerves with his parents. Both are those who attacked them in casual ways, presumably “two dolls cost a few more dollars,” and those who admitted their child had more toys than they needed.
In any case, the US toy industry has done a lot to exclusion, which could result in a tariff conflict between the Trump administration and the government in Beijing. Almost 80% of toys sold in the US come from China.
The Toy Association, a trade group, has been lobbying for immediate reprieve from the 145% tariff rate the president spent on Chinese-made products. Some toy companies warn that the likelihood of a holiday shortage will increase weekly. Customs duties remain in effect.
President Donald Trump will listen at the Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington on Wednesday, April 30th, 2025. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
File-Dolls is packed into cartons of the Yiwu International Trade Market in Yiwu, Z Jiang Province, East China on Thursday, April 10, 2025 (AP Photo/ng Han Guan, File)
President Donald Trump will speak at the Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington on Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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President Donald Trump will listen at the Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington on Wednesday, April 30th, 2025. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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This is a snapshot of the doll discussion and how tariffs affect toys.
How much is the US Doll Market worth?
From Barbie, Bratz and Cabbage Patch kids to American girls and Adora baby dolls of our generation, dolls are a big American company and beloved play.
According to market research firm Circana, the doll category, which includes accessories such as clothing, generated $2.7 billion in sales last year, compared to $2.9 billion in 2023 and $3.4 billion in 2019.
Consumers jumped to toys during the COVID pandemic to continue occupying their children and themselves, but sales flattened as inflation seized the economy.
Demand for Circana’s Chief Retail Advisor, Cohen Marshal Cohen, also said young girls interested in purchasing makeup and skincare.
What do toy companies do to navigate customs duties?
Mattel, the country’s largest toy manufacturer, said this week that prices for some products sold in the US would need to be raised to offset higher costs associated with tariffs.
The brands, including Barbie and American Girl, said that growth is needed despite accelerating the expansion of manufacturing bases outside of China.
Smaller toy companies are expected to spend more difficult times than Mattel or Hasbro. Cathy said she suspended shipments of loyal subjects from China in April.
“No one is quarantining that much with cash,” he said.
Cathey said his ability to get around four months’ worth of stock and keep it on holiday stock will depend on US-China trade standoff breaks over the next two weeks as it will take time for freight operations to resume.
Cepia, a Missouri company behind Zhu Zhu Pets, a 2009 holiday hit, launched a line of 11-inch fashion dolls called Decora Girlz last year. CEO James Russell Hornsby said that although he is working on relocating several productions, no movement will occur in time to replace the orders he plans to get from China.
Hornsby described himself as a Trump supporter and said he understands the administration’s desire to reduce trade imbalances.
“We’ll just have to close the deal and stop all of this because it’s going to confuse (Trump’s) Christmas,” he said.
What makes dolls?
American Girl launched in 1986 with a line based on fictional historical characters, but the dolls were not domestic products. They were made in Germany before production finally moved to China.
Toy experts say in addition to reducing costs, the Chinese factory has developed technology and expertise that cannot be easily replicated.
“We don’t have the ability to make rooted doll hair. And you have something like a face. Some of them are hand-drawn and others are done on a tampo machine.”
Hornsby said that rooting decorative hair on the head of decorative hair is done by skilled workers in factories in Guangzhou and Dongguan, China.
“It doesn’t just stick to the machine, it does it automatically,” he said. “When only 60% of your head may be filled with hair, you need to know what you’re doing to make the doll look like a complete set of hair.”
Are Chinese toys safe?
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said last week that he assumed consumers would prefer to pay more for American-made products. Dolls made in China may contain lead paint, he said.
Teresa Murray, the consumer watchdog director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said the photo is more complicated.
Products for children under the age of 12 require third-party testing and certification from labs approved by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, and are the agents responsible for implementing lead-level toys, Murray said.
This rule applies to all products sold in US toys by major brands such as Fisher Price, Mattel, Hasbro and Lego.
However, according to Murray, the rise of online shopping, including e-commerce platforms that ship directly to US consumers from overseas, has pose a challenge. If valued under $800, such plots went into US tax exemption and were not subject to the same scrutiny as bulk imports, she said.
The White House has eliminated customs exemptions from May 2nd due to low-value plots born in mainland China and Hong Kong. US Customs and Border Protection expects additional surveillance to be more likely to violate the issue.
Toy companies and industry experts argue that high tariffs on Chinese imports will seduce price-sensitive shoppers in search of cheap counterfeit toys with higher safety risks.
Can a child have too many dolls?
Many agree that American consumer culture is largely out of control.
Katie Wally Weagard, 38, a senior marketer in Richmond, Virginia and parent of her two-year-old son, agrees that there is too much materialism, but believes that parents should have options when deciding what’s best for their children. She found the wealthy Trump comments to be offensive.
“I think it’s a small view of what the buying habits and reality are for people who buy toys for their kids,” Wally Weagard said.
San Francisco resident Elenor Mac said he founded a Jilly Bin doll company because he couldn’t find an Asian American doll for his daughter, Gillian, now 5 years old.
The trade war with China “makes that even more impossible for those families,” Mack said.
Original release: May 9, 2025, 1:26pm EDT
