How the maker of Nerf guns will navigate Trump’s tariffs on China
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G.I. Joes. Some of Hasbro’s bestselling toys could get pricier if President-elect Donald Trump implements stiff tariffs on Chinese imports.
One of America’s largest toy makers says it is negotiating with suppliers and considering design changes ahead of potential new levies. “We’ve been preparing for many months for any contingency," Chris Cocks, Hasbro’s chief executive, said in an interview. The threat of new taxes on toy imports comes amid a long-term shift in the industry away from China, spurred in part by rising labor costs in that country.
Hasbro, Barbie-maker Mattel and others have spent years trying to make fewer toys and games in China by relocating to factories in other countries, including Vietnam and India. New levies might make that shift more of a necessity, but Hasbro’s efforts demonstrate that it could be difficult to speed up. Hasbro’s current target is for roughly 20% of its U.S.
sales to come from China-made products within four years, down from about 40% today. The challenges the company has faced in achieving a long-held goal underline the pressure facing toy makers. Cocks, who became CEO in 2022, is taking up Hasbro’s decadelong goal of reducing the company’s reliance on China.
While lower-cost locations are easy to find, switching to a new factory with similar product-quality and safety standards can be a challenge in the toy industry, analysts say. Unlike in some industries, automation has yet to make major strides in parts of the toy-making process. Assembly for many toys still relies on skilled workers to put together the latest action figure or hand-paint details.
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