The message here is consistent: we simply cannot roll back time and starting factories building low value products:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/12/economy/toy-prices-us-china-tariffs
"
145% tariffs on China are clobbering the toy industry
Toys made in China have been exempt from tariffs since President Donald Trump’s first term. That is no longer the case.
Last month, Trump raised tariff rates on China to 20%, dealing a big blow to the toy industry. But he didn’t stop there. Just a few weeks later, Trump was set to tack on an additional 34%
“reciprocal” tariff. Then he tacked on another tariff, and another, and another.
Now, goods from China are being tariffed at a whopping 145% rate — and that number will likely keep growing as Beijing vows to continue retaliating against new tariffs and Trump threatens to do the same.
For American families, this means relatively inexpensive toys could become luxuries. That’s because n
early 80% of all toys sold in the US are manufactured in China, according to the Toy Association, a leading industry group.
“
We have no choice but to increase our prices by high double digits,” said Isaac Larian, CEO of California-based MGA Entertainment, which makes Bratz and L.O.L. Surprise! Dolls, among several other toys.
“The life of my business, 46 years, is on the line.”
Trump said that one of his main impetuses for enacting higher tariffs is to
bring manufacturing jobs back to the US. Yet Larian said
China’s 125% retaliatory tariffs on US exports are going to force him to lay off American workers at his Hudson, Ohio, factory, which has around 700 employees in total. That’s because many goods manufactured there are shipped to China.
While the
majority of MGA’s production remains in China, its Ohio factory produces much of its Little Tikes line of goods, including toy cars and sandboxes. The facility could manufacture more toys, but Americans “do not want to work in factories,” he said.
Even if finding more workers weren’t an issue, it would still cost more for the US factory to manufacture the toys that are currently being produced in China, even with the current tariffs in place, he said. Moreover, it’s particularly challenging to source the raw materials needed to make doll hair domestically.
“
There is no American factory anywhere that can make hair for dolls. What am I supposed to do? Sell bald dolls?” Larian said.
[...]
Furthermore,
many toy manufacturers are considered small businesses. It’s much easier for them to tap in to the existing infrastructure in China than to build factories in the US from scratch, he said.
“Our tooling, our factory base, the consistency of production — and how do you just up and leave and go to another market?” Foreman said. “There are things you aren’t able to make (in the US) physically, or produce here, and toys are one of those.”
It’s a situation many toy companies are confronting, especially now when they’d otherwise place holiday season orders. The loss of revenue means several “may not be able to stay in business,” Ahearn told CNN."
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No CEO of a proper company takes action and then figures out what the consequences are. But here, our government decided to do the opposite. Take action and let folks be damned. Our own citizens no less.
No strategy. No thought. No plan. Just upend people's lives and go and brag that they are "bringing manufacturing back to America." I want world peace too but saying it, doesn't make it so.
Why not set up a fund to help these companies invest in factories here?
Why not give tuition assistant for vocational schools to develop these skills? Oh wait, we are shutting down department of education.
Where is all the tariff money going anyway? Why isn't it, as Canada has said, earmarked to help these companies already?
Why didn't they go and interview a few of these companies before taking action? How presumptuous can you be to think you know all the answers?
I said I hate tariffs, didn't I?
