“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,” Donald Trump said about 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.”
According to a recent study released by the U.S. Commerce Department on Thursday, May 1, the U.S. GDP declined by 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025. Trump, however, was quick to blame his predecessor, President Joe Biden, on his Truth Social page.
🫤 just let em eat cake!!
Trump Says Kids May Just Have To Live With Fewer Toys Because Of His Tariffs“Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30,” Trump said about the prospect of empty store shelves due to his trade war with China.https://t.co/8u32bn8J9g
— Susie Bradford🪷 (@SusanKBradford) May 1, 2025
“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!!!”
After Trump vowed to impose tariffs on almost all imported items in his “Liberation Day” address on April 2, the taxes on China are among the few that actually took effect.
Trump, who had said he “knew what the hell [he was] doing,” almost immediately put a 90-day hold on almost all of the planned international tariffs, with the exception of China, when the stock market crashed and China responded by raising its own duties on American exports.
Trump has not held back from attacking anyone who disagrees with his tumultuous economic strategy. After Americans voiced their worries about their retirement funds and the “Liberation Day” stock market crash, he called on them to stop becoming “Panican.”
Trump, on Tariffs, Says ‘Maybe the Children Will Have 2 Dolls Instead of 30’ – NY Times https://t.co/vGtF6yfZGY
“President Trump has a message for the nation’s children: Prepare to sacrifice for your country.” pic.twitter.com/EYymXRnFdT
— Bruce Lesley (@BruceLesley) May 1, 2025
According to him, the term he coined at that precise moment was intended to refer to “weak and stupid people,” as he clarified 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!)”
But according to an Associated Press story posted on Thursday, leading analysts think that this decline would last for the entirety of Trump’s first year 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.’’
