When Donald Trump announced this week that American children will have to make do with fewer toys at Christmas, unflattering comparisons were drawn to noted figures from history.
โIt sounded like Marie Antoinette saying โlet them eat cakeโ,โ said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster.
Economists and businessmen have been warning for weeks that the presidentโs 145 per cent tariff on China will raise prices for ordinary Americans. The White House has consistently pushed back on that narrative.
But on Wednesday the mask slipped. Trump said China had made a โtrillion dollarsโ.โ.โ.โselling us stuff, [and] much of it we donโt needโ.
He said people had been warning of empty shelves and โmaybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dollsโ.โ.โ. and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normallyโ. But โwe have to make a fair dealโ, he added.
Here was the president acknowledging his trade war might cause real hardship for voters โ many of whom elected him to bring down the cost of living and boost growth.
Trumpโs enemies could hardly believe their luck. They mocked him on social media as a modern-day โGrinch who stole Christmasโ and โScrooge McTrumpโ. One television presenter, channelling the Sopranos, called him โDonny 2 Dollsโ.
โโYour family will have less, but itโll be more expensiveโ is definitely a solid economic pitch,โ the stand-up comic Mike Drucker wrote on X.
Trump is not the first president to demand sacrifices of the American people. After the attack on Pearl Harbor and the USโs entry into the second world war, Franklin D Roosevelt called for a programme of โself-denialโ, with higher taxes and the rationing of goods.
โAll of us are used to spending money for things that we want, things, however, which are not absolutely essential,โ he said in April 1942. โWe will all have to forgo that kind of spending.โ
But FDRโs words carried weight because they were dealing with national emergencies triggered by war and revolution, said Julian Zelizer, a professor of political history at Princeton University.
โThis is a crisis created by the person asking you to make the sacrifice,โ he said. โSo itโs much less persuasive.โ
Trumpโs exhortations carry a political risk similar to that of Jimmy Carterโs widely lampooned โmalaiseโ speech of July 1979 at the height of the Middle East oil crisis, when he called on citizens to โset your thermostats to save fuelโ. He went on to lose the presidency to Ronald Reagan in a landslide the following year.
Consumers have reacted with dismay to Trumpโs call. โDoes this mean Iโm going to have to stockpile dolls for my grandkids now?โ said Cheryl, a grandmother in her 70s doing shopping in Austin, Texas. โMy husband is already talking about stockpiling toilet paper.โ
Trumpโs comments are part of a flurry of statements from the White House belittling the trade with China. โThe American dream is not contingent on cheap baubles from China,โ Scott Bessent, Treasury secretary, said in March. โWe are focused on affordability, but itโs mortgages, itโs cars, itโs real wage gains.โ
Such comments have horrified toymakers. โIโve been attacked by my own government,โ said Rick Woldenberg, chief executive of Learning Resources, an Illinois-based company that makes toys and educational products and has been manufacturing in China for four decades.
โTo denigrate what weโre doing and say these things are trivial and unimportant and people should make do without them โ itโs just demeaning,โ he added. โWe donโt think weโre just creating heaps of plastic for people.โ
Big names in the industry have seen big stock market declines. The share price of Mattel, maker of Barbie dolls, has fallen 18 per cent since โliberation dayโ in April, when Trump unveiled his reciprocal tariffs.
Isaac Larian, chief executive of MGA Entertainment, the largest toymaker in the US, said the tariffs will be โdisastrousโ, predicting a โ30-40 per cent drop in salesโ.
The company gets 65 per cent of its products from Chinese factories, and the tariffs will force them to massively raise prices โ from $15 to $29-$30 for a Bratz doll, one of its most popular items.
โIf the tariffs are not reduced weโre going to be forced to lay off people, including people in our factory here actually manufacturing toys in the US,โ said Larian, who said he voted for Trump last November.
He is asking for a โtwo to three-year reprieveโ on import levies, similar to the exemption Trump allowed for smartphones and computers, while MGA proceeds with a $40mn investment in a new plant on US territory. โThis will give him an opportunity to save Christmas,โ he said.
However, no sign exists of a respite in the trade war, with worrying implications for the economy. Yale Universityโs Budget Lab has estimated the tariffs Trump has announced globally since taking office would reduce US economic growth by 1.1 per cent in 2025.
Some evidence shows they are curbing peopleโs willingness to spend. The University of Michiganโs index of consumer sentiment for April was 52.2, down from 57 in March, while year-ahead inflation expectations surged from 5 per cent in March to 6.5 per cent in April, its highest reading since 1981.
Trump has insisted the tariffs are a necessary medicine for an ailing patient that is far too dependent on imported goods. They will, he says, force the relocation of manufacturing and supply chains back to the American heartland while the true cost of the tariffs will be borne by exporting countries, not US consumers.
But voters are expressing increasing doubts about Trumpโs economic policies. One recent poll gave him an approval rating of just 42 per cent, a historically low level for a president this early in a term.
Perhaps most worrying for the White House, voters appear to be losing confidence in his handling of the economy โ one of his strongest suits in last Novemberโs election.
Alex Conant, a Republican consultant who was communications director for Marco Rubioโs 2016 presidential bid, said there is nothing essentially wrong with asking voters to make a sacrifice, but โyou have to give them a really clear reason whyโ.
The White House has said the tariffs were needed to raise revenue and help balance the budget, to isolate China, to bring back manufacturing and, in the case of Mexico and Canada, to reduce fentanyl smuggling and illegal immigration.
โThese reasons canโt all be true at the same time,โ he said.
Additional reporting by Kristina Shevory in Austin.
