(Headline USA) Rick Woldenberg thought he had come up with a sure-fire plan to protect his Chicago-area educational toy company from President Donald Trump’s massive new taxes on Chinese imports.

“When he announced a 20% tariff, I made a plan to survive 40%, and I thought I was being very clever,” said Woldenberg, CEO of Learning Resources, a third-generation family business that has been manufacturing in China for four decades. “I had worked out that for a very modest price increase, we could withstand 40% tariffs, which was an unthinkable increase in costs.”

The American president quickly upped the ante with China, raising the levy to 54% to offset what he said were China’s unfair trade practices. Then, enraged when China retaliated with tariffs of its own, he upped the levies to a staggering 145%.

Woldenberg reckons that will push Learning Resource’s tariff bill from $2.3 million last year to $100.2 million in 2025. “I wish I had $100 million,” he said. “Honest to God, no exaggeration: It feels like the end of days.”

‘Addicted’ to low-price Chinese goods

It might at least be the end of an era of inexpensive consumer goods in America. For four decades, and especially since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, Americans have relied on Chinese factories for everything from smartphones to Christmas ornaments.

As tensions between the world’s two biggest economies — and geopolitical rivals — have risen over the past decade, Mexico and Canada have supplanted China as America’s top source of imported goods and services. But China is still No. 3 — and second behind Mexico in goods alone — and continues to dominate in many categories.

China produces 97% of America’s imported baby carriages, 96% of its artificial flowers and umbrellas, 95% of its fireworks, 93% of its children’s coloring books and 90% of its combs, according to a report from the Macquarie investment bank.

Over the years, U.S. companies have set up supply chains that depend on thousands of Chinese factories. Low tariffs greased the system. As recently as January 2018, U.S. tariffs on China averaged just over 3%, according to Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“American consumers created China,” said Joe Jurken, founder of the ABC Group in Milwaukee, which helps U.S. businesses manage supply chains in Asia. “American buyers, the consumers, got addicted to cheap pricing. And the brands and the retailers got addicted to the ease of buying from China.”

Slower growth and higher prices

Now Trump, demanding that manufacturers return production to the U.S., is swinging a tariff sledgehammer at the American importers and the Chinese factories they rely on.

“The consequences of tariffs at this scale could be apocalyptic at many levels,” said David French, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Retail Foundation.

The Yale University Budget Lab estimates the tariffs that Trump has announced globally since taking office would lower U.S. economic growth by 1.1 percentage points in 2025.

The tariffs are also likely to push up prices. The University of Michigan’s survey of consumer sentiment, out Friday, found Americans expect long-term inflation to reach 4.4%, up from 4.1% last month.

“Inflation’s going up in the United States,” said Stephen Roach, former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and now at Yale Law School’s China Center. “Consumers have figured this out as well.”

‘No business can run on uncertainty’

On Wednesday, the White House said the tariffs on China would hit 125%. A day later, it corrected that: No, the tariffs would be 145%, including a previously announced 20% to pressure China to do more to stop the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.

China in turn has imposed a 125% tariff on the U.S. effective Saturday.

“There is so much uncertainty,” said Isaac Larian, the founder of MGA Entertainment, which makes L.O.L. and Bratz dolls, among other toys. “And no business can run on uncertainty.”

His company gets 65% of its product from Chinese factories, a share he is trying to winnow down to 40% by the end of the year. MGA also manufactures in India, Vietnam and Indonesia, but Trump is threatening to levy heavy tariffs on those countries, too, after delaying them for 90 days.

Larian estimates the price of Bratz dolls could go from $15 to $40 and L.O.L. dolls could double to $20 by this year’s holiday season.

Even his Little Tikes brand, which is made in Ohio, is not immune. Little Tikes depends on screws and other parts from China. Larian figures the price for its toy cars could rise to $90 from a suggested retail price of $65.

MGA would likely cut orders for the fourth quarter because he is worried that higher prices will scare off consumers, he said.

Calling off China production plans

Marc Rosenberg, founder and CEO of The Edge Desk in Deerfield, Illinois, invested millions of dollars of his own money to develop $1,000 ergonomic chairs, which were to start production in China next month.

Now he is delaying production while exploring markets outside the U.S., including Germany and Italy, where his chairs would not face Trump’s triple-digit tariffs. He said he wants to see how the situation plays out.

He had looked for ways to make the chairs in the U.S. and had discussions with potential suppliers in Michigan, but the costs would have been 25% to 30% higher.

“They didn’t have the skilled labor to do this stuff, and they didn’t have the desire to do it,” Rosenberg said.

Making Chinese imports go ‘kaput’

Woldenberg’s company in Vernon Hills, Illinois, has been in the family since 1916. It was started by his grandfather as a laboratory supply company and evolved over the years into Learning Resources.

The company specializes in educational toys such as Botley: The Coding Robot and the brainteaser Kanoodle. It employs about 500 people — 90% in the U.S. — and makes about 2,400 products in China.

Woldenberg is reeling from the size and suddenness of Trump’s tariffs.

“The products I make in China, about 60% of what I do, become economically unviable overnight,” he said. “In an instant, snap of a finger, they’re kaput.”

He described Trump’s call for factories to return to the U.S. as “a joke.”

“I have been looking for American manufacturers for a long time … and I have come up with zero companies to partner with,” he said.

The tariffs, unless they are reduced or eliminated, will wipe out thousands of small Chinese suppliers, Woldenberg predicted.

That would spell disaster for companies like his that have installed expensive tools and molds in Chinese factories, he said. The stand to lose not only their manufacturing base but also possibly their tools, which could get caught up in bankruptcies in China.

Learning Resources has about 10,000 molds, weighing collectively more than 5 million pounds (2.2 million kilograms), in China.

“It’s not like you just bring in a canvas bag, zip it up and walk out,” Woldenberg said. “There is no idle manufacturing hub standing fully equipped, full of engineers and qualified people waiting for me to show up with 10,000 molds to make 2,000 products.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

(Headline USA) Democrats are quick to say that President Donald Trump’s tariffs are horrible, awful, terrible. But Democrats are also stressing that they are not inherently anti-tariff.

What Trump’s political opponents say they really dislike is the “chaos” he has unleashed.

“Tariffs are an important tool in our economic toolbox,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. “Trump is creating chaos, and that chaos undercuts our economy and our families, both in the short term and the long term. … He’s just created a worldwide hurricane, and that’s not good for anyone.”

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said Democrats have a consensus around “a unified concept, which is targeted tariffs can work, across the board tariffs are bad.”

“The right targeting is in the eye of the beholder, but nobody on our side thinks zero tariffs ever,” Kaine said.

The Democrats’ message is meant to convey that they are reasonable, focused on capable governance and attuned to financial market distress. It’s a pitch toward swing voters who would like to see more manufacturing yet are uncomfortable with the consequences of Trump’s approach to tariffs. The risk is that it also is a nuanced argument at a time when pithy critiques travel faster and spread wider on social media than do measured policy analyses.

To the Trump White House, that message is nothing but hypocrisy.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday noted that Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who would later become House speaker, was warning in June 1996 that trade with China meant higher trade deficits and job losses.

“It is about nothing less than our economic future, our national security and our democratic principles,” said Pelosi before the House voted to not overturn then Democratic President Bill Clinton’s decision to extend most-favored-nation trade status for China for another year.

The Trump administration views those remarks as evidence that Democrats actually back what Trump is doing, despite their stated opposition.

“Everyone in Washington, whether they want to admit it or not, knows that this president is right when it comes to tariffs and when it comes to trade,” Leavitt told reporters. “Nancy Pelosi can thank President Trump today.”

Not all Democrats have threaded the needle cleanly.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer gave a speech in Washington on Wednesday calling for tariffs to be used like a “scalpel.” Hours later, she was in the Oval Office with Trump — in a moment caught on video — as the president signed directives for the Justice Department to investigate two of his public critics and gave noncommittal musings on tariff negotiations.

Whitmer’s office later said in a statement that she was “surprised” that she was brought in for the event after a meeting with Trump and that “her presence is not an endorsement of the actions taken or statements made at that event.”

Trump this month unilaterally imposed sweeping tariffs on China, the European Union, Mexico, Canada, Japan and South Korea, among dozens of other nations.

But on Wednesday, he suspended most of the tariffs for 90 days while applying a baseline import tax of 10% to most nations, a 145% tariff on Chinese goods and a tariff of as much as 25% on Mexico and Canada. There are also tariffs on autos, steel and aluminum, with more planned on specific products.

The tariffs are expected to generate hundreds of billions of dollars annually in new revenues, but an average U.S. household could see disposable income fall by more than $4,000 as importers and companies pass along the costs of the levies.

Interest rates on the U.S. debt are rising as investors worry about the soundness of Trump’s policies. Major stock indexes are down and consumer sentiment is at its second lowest level in the history of the University of Michigan survey.

Some Democrats are trying to keep the focus on their constituents, resurrecting talking points from Trump’s tariff battles during his first term.

“Farmers, in particular, who were hit very hard by Trump’s last trade wars, are terrified that this may be existential to their businesses,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. “These are mostly small and medium-sized family farms. Their input costs are going to go up and their export markets are going to close down.”

Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., said the tariffs would be “catastrophic” for urban and rural communities alike in her state. But Moore added that Democrats should still advocate for raising labor and product standards to keep American goods and services competitive in global markets.

“I know that many of our autoworkers were lured into voting for Donald Trump because they thought perhaps he was going to give them some relief,” said Moore. “But the prices of cars are going to go up because the component parts are everywhere. There’s no strategy for it.”

But not all Democrats want to hedge their response to Trump’s trade tools.

“I’m a little uninterested in what the Democratic response should be like,” said Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii. “Trump is intentionally destroying the American economy, and I think we should just say that and not make it very complicated.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.