'Barbie' maker hikes prices as Trump tells Americans to buy fewer dolls: report
Two large United States businesses had big announcements Monday, and they cited President Donald Trump's tariffs as the cause.
Mattel, the company responsible for "Hot Wheels" and "Barbie," "scrapped its financial forecast for the year, saying tariffs make it hard to predict consumer spending," The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
It has been less than a week since Trump announced at a Cabinet meeting that children may have to make do with less during the holiday season.
“Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally,” the president said.
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“As we sit here today, we’re modeling different scenarios, but it’s hard to tell where things will land and how the tariff situation will evolve,” CEO Ynon Kreiz said. “It’s very volatile right now.”
The report said that Mattel is the largest toy company in the United States by sales. It has moved some of its production out of China "in recent years," but about 40% of toys are still manufactured there.
"To offset the cost of tariffs," the company said it would press to shift manufacturing out of China faster. "Where necessary," the company said, it will raise prices on toys.
The Journal also noted that the CEO announced that Mattel is "supporting the toy industry’s lobbying efforts to press for zero tariffs on toys."
During its earnings call, Ford revealed that it beat Wall Street’s first-quarter expectations, but given the tariffs announced by Trump, it would "suspend its 2025 financial guidance," CNBC reported.
The company said that it expects a $2.5 billion impact from the Trump tariffs this year. It said that the goal is to "offset" $1 billion of those costs, however.
In early April, Trump announced a 25% tariff on imported vehicles and added a 25% tariff on auto parts that don't fall into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which took effect on Saturday.