1 month ago
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(NewsNation) — Trump medication tariffs person caller mothers acrophobic that the prices of babe products could skyrocket adjacent higher, with the mean outgo of raising a kid successful its archetypal twelvemonth already astatine astir $20,000.
An estimated 90% of the halfway babe attraction products and the parts that spell into making babe paraphernalia – from bottles and diaper pails to strollers and car seats – are made successful Asia, according to the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, a U.S. commercialized group. The immense bulk travel from China.
This wasn’t ever the case.
When Munchkin Inc. CEO Steven Dunn founded his institution successful 1991, it made babe bottles successful California with tooling from New Jersey. But implicit the years, the manufacturers helium utilized unopen down and the outgo of doing concern successful the U.S. skyrocketed. Now, astir 60% of Munchkin’s 500 products, from a $5 sippy cupful to a $254 Night Owl Stroller with headlights, are made successful China.
In effect to the tariffs, Dunn halted orders from China and instituted a hiring frost astatine Munchkin’s California headquarters, wherever 320 radical are employed. Dunn expects Munchkin volition tally retired of immoderate products wrong 3 months.
The Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association said it asked the Trump medication for a tariff exemption, arguing that babe products are indispensable for children’s well-being. Trump exempted immoderate babe products, including car seats and precocious chairs, from import taxes during his archetypal administration. But helium hasn’t said whether helium would see doing truthful again.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
