New York Post Cover Skewers Trump’s Warning Americans Will Have to Buy Fewer Dolls Because of Tariffs
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
The New York Post roasted President Donald Trump’s latest statement defending his massive tariffs on China with its Thursday cover, “Skimp on the Barbie.”
The headline ran next to a photo of the iconic doll for children and an unflattering image of Trump speaking. The cover story, written by Steven Nelson, was titled online, “Trump shrugs off shortage fears over China tariffs: ‘Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30.’”
The Rupert Murdoch-owned Post has long been a reliably pro-Trump publication, but has made clear its opposition to Trump’s tariffs. In mid-April, the Post ran an editorial headlined, “Trump’s China tariffs are slamming small businesses — the heart of our economy and his own voters.” The Post’s editorial board argued in the piece that Trump’s tariffs would hurt his base economically and warned, “If the White House doesn’t wake up fast to the growing angst, the fallout — economic and political — will be rapid, deep and lasting.”
On Wednesday, in an Oval Office back-and-forth with reporters, Trump said, “You know, somebody said, ‘Oh, the shelves are going to be empty’. Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.” He added:
But we’re not talking about something that we have to go out of our way — they have ships that are loaded up with stuff, much of which — not all of it, but 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, the leading candidate for the chief ripper-offer.
Trump slapped a massive 145% tariff on China, igniting a trade war with the country that is one of the key suppliers of cheap goods into the U.S. and manufactures key components for U.S. industries. Trump made the comments the same day that news broke that the U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter of the year, data which did not include Trump’s early April announcement of sweeping global tariffs, which were much larger than most economists and business leaders predicted.
__
