“Maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally,” Trump added as he brushed off concerns about Chinese imports
- President Donald Trump has admitted that his tariffs on China might have a stark impact on U.S. goods.
- Trump brushed off concerns, saying, “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30.”
- The U.S. Commerce Department reported on Wednesday, April 29, that the economy had shrunk 0.3% during the first quarter, but Trump placed that blame on his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
President Donald Trump has admitted how his foreign tariffs may impact American consumers following a new report about the U.S. economy.
During a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, April 30, Trump was asked about his tariffs on goods from China and how they might continue to affect the U.S. marketplace. In early April, the president upped the tariffs to 145% and Bloomberg reported this week that cargo shipments from China have since fallen by an estimated 60%.
“Somebody said the shelves will be open. Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30. Maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally,” Trump said of the tariffs’ effect on U.S. goods.
“But we’re not talking about something where we’ll have to go out of our way,” he continued. “They have ships that are loaded up with stuff, much of which we don’t need. And we have to make a fair deal. We’ve been ripped off by every country in the world, but China, I would say, is the leading one.”
On Thursday, May 1, the U.S. Commerce Department released a new report indicating that the American economy shrank by 0.3% during the first quarter of 2025.
However, on his Truth Social page, Trump was quick to place the blame on his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th,” he wrote. “Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers.”
“Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang,’ ” he continued. “This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!”
The tariffs on China are some of the only ones that actually went into effect following Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” speech, in which the president threatened tariffs on nearly all imported goods.
After the stock market plummeted and China upped their own tariffs on American goods in response, Trump — who had claimed he “knew “what the hell [he was] doing” — almost immediately put a 90-day hold on nearly all of the planned international tariffs, excluding China.
Trump has not hesitated to bash critics of his turbulent economic plan. After Americans expressed concern about the “Liberation Day” stock market crash and the state of their retirement savings, he urged them to stop being “Panican.”
The term, which he coined in that moment, was apparently meant to mean “weak and stupid people,” he explained on Truth Social.
“The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO,” he said. “Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!)”
However, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that top economists believe this downturn could continue throughout Trump’s first year back in office.
“We think the downturn of the economy will get worse in the second half of this year,’’ said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. “Corrosive uncertainty and higher taxes — tariffs are a tax on imports — will drag GDP growth back into the red by the end of this year.’’