The small American toys manufacturers took advantage of the Comic-Con, the largest festival in the world dedicated to pop culture, which is held in San Diego, California, to alert the impact of the customs duties of Donald Trump in his activity sector.
“This is not a sexy issue,” admitted Jonathan Cathey, executive director of the loyal subject toys brand, during a round table entitled “Toys, Customs Rights and Commercial Wars,” organized, on Thursday, July 24, as part of the California Convention.
“But in the end it affects. It affects the consumer. Prices will increase and sales will decrease,” he added.
A surcharge in China that worries small toys manufacturers
From his return to the White House in January, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, has announced customs duties against many countries. Sustaxes, especially against China, that concern the toy sector.
Daniel Pickett, a journalist and moderator of the round table, told him that the administration of the US president imposed “very heavy measures, slightly crazy and scary.”
Donald Trump’s proposal to impose additional import imports “has wreaked havoc throughout the sector,” he added.
Donald Trump recently rejected Hassbro Boss’s concerns, Chris Cocks, regarding the increase in toys prices if customs tariffs were applied. According to the US president, his commercial policy promotes national production.
Customs duties that will affect the price of toys
But for Jonathan Cathey, this rhetoric does not reflect reality. “There are 480,000 production works (…) that are vacancies. So what are we going to do? We are going to bring many factory work that nobody will occupy?” He said, believing that the added value of the United States was in innovation rather.
“There are industries where customs tasks have meaning,” he continued, giving the automotive sector as an example. “There is a mechanism in which customs tasks really protect jobs, US workers and our national security. Barbie, this is not the case.”
For his part, Brian Flynn, founder of the Super7 Toys brand, considers that Donald Trump’s reversions in customs tasks have led to great uncertainty in the sector.
“No one knows what will happen,” he explained during the round table, and three customs duties of digit, like those Trump threatened to inflict China, “would persecute everyone” in the market.
According to him, the impact of the surcharge is already visible: this year, he had to settle for a smaller position in the event.
But consumers will feel the effects on their wallets of the next quarter, “and when it happens, it will make a big difference for us,” he said.
Source: BFM TV
