I just paid over $20,000 in tariffs on two containers.

Regardless of whether tariffs are good for the USA (and the world), they need to be executed better.

We committed to purchasing these goods before Trump was elected, when there was 0% duty.

We shipped them before February 1st, so the tariff was not supposed to apply, but it is being applied because they are arriving after March 4th.

Sea shipping is slow, and so is going through the Panama Canal to get to Houston; we can't control this.

So this is $20,000 in unpredictable costs that we must shoulder. We went from paying $100,000 in goods costs to $120,000.

When we're selling these goods to a retailer at a price decided months ago we go from profitable to losing money.

And this tariff is not protecting a toy industry in the USA. The product is stuffed animals. We have a 20% tariff right now.

Even with a 200% tariff, I'm not sure if you could make these products in the United States.

And because we've had 25% tariffs put on Mexico twice, and then taken off twice, we won't be running down to Mexico, which has nowhere near the supply chain China does, to make our products.

And because on April 1st, there is a plan to have reciprocal tariffs on all countries, Vietnam and Indonesia should have duties that are as high as China's. So, that's not an option either.

So, I suppose, for now, the plan is to just make toys more expensive, no matter where they are made.

We cannot eat these cost increases, nor will our manufacturers. Thinking otherwise is magic.

So our retail prices will go up, not 20%, but probably 10-15% to account for not only the cost increase, but all the the extra work we need to do from arguing with customs brokers to the uncertainty.

These products are useful to parents, schools, and children.

But since these tariffs won't start a manufacturing renaissance in the United States because our supply chain is worse than other countries and because our labor is way more expensive both actually and effectively, they are a tax.

Toys, along with many other imports, will get more expensive and will be purchased less.

The United States needs to decide what it wants to do. Our president has built a lot, and I respect that, but I'm not sure he's ever manufactured anything.

Many of the products we use are not as simple as steel where, if certified, product from one country is interchangeable with that of another.

Most products are not like that. You can't say "we're going to build top of the line chips from Taiwan in Arizona, starting tomorrow". Bananas don't grow in the USA. There is no supply chain for stuffed animals in the United States or Mexico and what is in Southeast Asia is mostly imported from China.

What we need is a plan.

Stuffed animals will never be made in the United States. The labor costs are just too high. They can't be made with robots; we're far from that.

Let's put tariffs on the products that play to America's strengths or things that we need to make ourselves like medical equipment and food (because in war, you can't get that from other countries) and let's apply those tariffs to all countries instead of just the ones that we don't like this week.

And let's not do it on arbitrary timelines.

No one is going to build a factory in America when tariffs every other week are on and off.

Our administration's term is 4 years. Let's add 5% tariffs per year, until it hits 20% in year 4, no going back.

Yes, our system is such that when you have a new president, you have a new tariff regime, but our last president kept the tariffs made by our previous one.

Good policy is good policy.

We need a plan that's certain that plays to America's strengths, not ambiguous volatility.

And if we don't get that, we're going not only get higher prices, but a major recession, if not worse, in our industry, because this is going to hurt a lot, and not just jobs overseas, but jobs here in the USA.

So I hope the administration takes this feedback and uses it to adjust the strategy instead of doubling down on it.

PS if anyone knows how I can get some sort of exclusion for this $20,000 in tariffs on product purchased before president was elected, shipped before February 1st, please reply!