Toy industry CEO on Trump's China tariffs: 'Christmas is at risk’
The Toy Association president and CEO said President Trump’s 145 percent tariffs on China will likely jeopardize the Christmas holiday for children as the world’s two largest economies remain entangled in a trade battle.
“No toys are currently being produced in China. And there are reports that major retailers here in the U.S. are starting to actually cancel orders. So, Jake, Christmas is at risk,” Greg Ahearn said in a Tuesday appearance on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.”
The toy industry leader said American companies can't generate the same production scale as factories in China as 96 percent of United States manufacturers are considered small or medium-sized businesses.
“There are some toys that are made here in the U.S., but they're mostly paper goods or highly automated goods. And it represents a small portion of the toys that are manufactured,” he told CNN.
Ahearn said it would take a significant amount of time for American manufacturers to catch up to the pace of their counterparts in China.
“It would take three to five years to be able to build out the capacity, the specialization. Again, a lot of the toys that are made in China, as you said, 80 percent are hand labor made toys,” he said.
“It's the face painting on a doll. It's the hair decorating. It's placing them the correct way and packaging. A lot of this is hand labor that can't be automated here in the U.S.,” Ahearn concluded.
Billionaire Bill Ackman warned of similar turmoil for small business owners amid tariffs that could cut net profits and reduce a company’s ability to break even.
“I am receiving an increasing number of emails and texts from small business people I do business with or have invested in, expressing fear that they will not be able to pass on their increased costs to their customers and will suffer severely negative consequences,” he wrote on X before the president issued a 90 day pause on reciprocal tariffs with the exclusion of China.
Ackman applauded Trump's decision to halt levies for now, while others alleged the president overstepped his trade authority.
“Our system is not set up so that one person in the system can have the power to impose taxes across the world economy. That’s not how our constitutional republic works,” Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel at Liberty Justice Center, which is leading a lawsuit against the Trump administration over tariffs, told The Hill in previous comments.
Trump has maintained that tariffs will boost American manufacturing and increase the rate of jobs in the country. He’s said many countries are looking to make a “deal” with the U.S., absent of China.
“There’s no difference between China and any other country, except they are much larger, and China wants what we have, what every country wants what we have: the American consumer. Or to put it another way, they need our money,” Trump said.