Welp, it appears that the president with the lowest 100-day mark approval rating of any president in 80 years has retailers in the tow industry concerned that his abysmal presidency will stay abysmal at least until the 359-day mark, leaving us with a question most of us didn’t expect to be asking this early in the year:
Is President Donald Trump going to ruin Christmas?
Earlier this week, Greg Ahearn, chief executive of the Toy Association, a U.S. industry group representing 850 toy manufacturers, told the New York Times the toy industry in the U.S. is facing “a frozen supply chain that is putting Christmas at risk.”
“If we don’t start production soon, there’s a high probability of a toy shortage this holiday season,” Ahearn said.
On Wednesday, Trump held a meeting with CEOs at the White House, where he claimed that since he took office, the U.S. has seen $8 trillion in technology and manufacturing investments, dismissed reports of the negative first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth that has actually happened during his presidency, downplayed concerns over his tariff tantrum, blamed random things on the Biden administration, and, basically, responded to the toy shortage concerns by telling consumers they’re just going to have to buy fewer toys, which they would also pay more for.
Trump’s message appeared to be that while the U.S. economy will continue to suffer, China will suffer more — because there’s nothing more MAGA American than measuring our success by how much another nation theoretically suffers.
“It will happen. I told you before, they’re having tremendous difficulty because their factories are not doing business,” Trump said of China, the world’s largest manufacturing superpower. “They made a trillion dollars with Biden selling us stuff. Much of it we don’t need. Somebody said, ‘Oh, the shelves are gonna be open.’ Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more.”
First of all, you can tell Trump has been rich his whole life the way he casually started at “30 dolls.” You just know his childhood Christmases consisted of him telling his friends his daddy has a bigger sleigh full of toys than Santa and that some people are even saying he has the biggest, bigly toy bag ever recorded since the days of myrrh and frankincense. (I’m just kidding. There’s no way Trump had childhood friends.)
Secondly, at some point, we’re going to have to talk about what a lackluster job Trump is doing of selling his presidency these days. I mean, we all know Trump supporters are so loyal Trump could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and say, “Hey, you’re lucky I put tariffs on bullets,” but, damn, MAGA minions must be getting tired of moving the goal post to defend this White House clown car.
Anyway, here’s a quick breakdown on how the trade war with China can have an adverse effect on toy shopping in America come the holidays via ABC News:
China makes more than 70% of the world’s toys, employing more than 700,000 workers in that sector, according to IBISWorld, a New York-based.
The U.S. is the largest consumer market for toys accounting for 3.1% of the world’s kids but 40% of its toy consumption, according to researchers.
Analysts say retailers spend the early summer months ordering products for back-to-school and Christmas holiday shopping.
We can probably expect Trump to continue erroneously blaming the Biden administration for all of the problems he created for the country, since that’s been his go-to response in Trump-splaining away his sorry GDP numbers.
From CNBC:
“This is Biden,” Trump said after the Commerce Department reported gross domestic product declined in the first three months of this year.
“And you could even say the next quarter is sort of Biden because it doesn’t just happen on a daily or an hourly basis,” he said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
Trump noted that he did not take office until late January.
“The stock market in this case is, it says how bad the situation we inherited,” he said. “This is a quarter that we looked at today, and I, we took, all of us, together, we came in on January 20th.”
Trump also took to social media to proclaim that this is “Biden’s stock market.”
“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “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.’ ”
“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!!!” he continued.
This, of course, only led to people across the internet pointing out the stark difference between that post and the one he posted on Jan. 29, 2024, claiming, “THIS IS THE TRUMP STOCK MARKET BECAUSE MY POLLS AGAINST BIDEN ARE SO GOOD THAT INVESTORS ARE PROJECTING THAT I WILL WIN.”
In fact, Trump was recently asked about how he takes credit when it’s convenient and passes the buck when it’s not, to which he responded by saying what were certainly words, I guess.
Either way, Trump, as usual, doesn’t know what he’s talking about. (To be fair, we also don’t ever know what the hell he’s talking about.)
More from CNBC:
Trump’s claim that the negative GDP and subsequent market declines were a result of Biden’s policies is inaccurate.
According to the Commerce report, the GDP figure reflects a wave of imports that companies made to try to get ahead of Trump’s promised tariffs.
Also weighing on GDP was a drop in government spending, driven largely by a cut in defense.
A separate report from ADP earlier Wednesday showed that private payrolls rose by just 62,000 in April, far below the Dow Jones consensus estimate for an increase of 120,000.
The weak hiring report was the smallest gain since July 2024. It also showed a stark drop in payroll growth from the downwardly revised gain of 147,000 in March.
Markets fell sharply at the open after the GDP report and disappointing corporate results. Stocks clawed back some of those losses later in the trading day.
The bad economic data could hang over Trump’s meeting with more than two dozen business leaders at the White House later Wednesday.
And his blame-casting on Biden could trip up his recent efforts to take credit for what he asserts are a slew of positive economic developments.
So, come December, we can expect Trump to try to make Biden out to be the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, but we really know who “stink, stank, stunk” up the economy like this.
SEE ALSO:
Trump Seeks To Reshape How Schools Discipline Students
19 States Are Suing The Trump Administration Over Its ‘Illogical’ Anti-DEI Agenda
Is President Trump Going To Ruin Christmas?
was originally published on
newsone.com
