| Product | 2024 | 2025 |
| Toys and dolls | $0 million | $1,509 million |
| Video game consoles | $0 million | $448 million |
| Christmas ornaments | $7 million | $446 million |
| Other Christmas decorations | $0 million | $66 million |
| Nativity scenes | $0 million | $8 million |
| Sports equipment | $309 million | $993 million |
| Musical instruments | $62 million | $144 million |
| Cards and magic tricks | $0 million | $38 million |
* Most recent data available. About a third of toy imports arrive in October, November, and December, so the final 2025 totals will likely approach $2 billion for toys, $0.7 billion for ornaments, Nativity scenes, and other decorations, and $0.7 billion for video game consoles and accessories.
Having squeezed down the chimney, the Grinch pokes his head out of the fireplace and looks around:
| “‘These stockings,’ he grinned, ‘are the first things to go!’ Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant, Around the whole room, and he took every present! Pop guns! And bicycles! Roller skates! Drums! Checkerboards! Tricycles! Popcorn! And plums! And he stuffed them in bags. Then the Grinch, very nimbly, Stuffed all the bags, one by one, up the chimney!” |
Then he takes all the food in the house and steals Cindy Lou’s tree.
The Trump administration’s comparably weird idea for a de facto two-doll-per-girl rationing system hasn’t entirely panned out. It hasn’t wholly failed, though. With tariffs higher and prices rising, Americans are spending less on Christmas gifts this year than last, and getting less for the money they do spend.
The National Retail Federation’s mid-October estimate notes that “tariffs remain on top of mind for most holiday shoppers, with 85% anticipating higher prices because of tariffs”. They predicted that the average American household would spend $890 on holiday gifts this winter, which would be a $12 drop from 2024’s $902, and adjusting for this year’s higher prices, a real-dollar drop of about 3%, to $863. Coincidentally or not, as PPI’s Fiscal Policy Analyst Alex Kilander points out this week, the 3% real-spending drop almost perfectly matches the BLS’s Consumer Price Index estimate of a 3% rise in toy prices this year.
NRF’s 85% aren’t wrong to worry. Census figures on tariffs are complete only through September, so they haven’t yet tallied the bill for holiday-season shipments in October and November. But even the January-to-September figures already show a hike in the toy-tariff bill from nothing in 2024 to $1.5 billion this year. Video-game consoles got a similar $0 to $448 million hike. Tariff collection jumped 80-fold on Christmas tree ornaments and other decorations — $7 million last year, more than half a billion dollars this year — and rose by $8 million even on creches and Nativity scenes.
In effect, rather than swiping the presents and throwing them off a mountain, the Trump team is heavily taxing them. (U.S. Supreme Court, 1819: “The power to tax involves the power to destroy”.) We can’t precisely line up the administration’s tariff bill with the Grinch’s raid on Whoville, because the Harmonized Tariff Schedule metaphorically stuffs all toys, dolls, tricycles, balloons, and so forth into a single bag (HTS line 95030000). But we can do a pretty close match, starting in the same way with the stockings:
| PRODUCT | 2024 TARIFFS | 2025 TARIFFS |
| Socks & other hosiery | $225 million | $441 million |
| Toys, dolls, etc | $0 million | $1,509 million |
| Bicycles | $109 million | $159 million |
| Roller skates | $0 million | $5 million |
| Drums | $4 million | $7 million |
| Board games | $0 million | $59 million |
| Popcorn | $0.01 million | $0.2 million |
| Plums (fresh) | $0 million | $0.5 million |
| Plums (preserved/sugared) | $0.4 million | $0.6 million |
So buyers of children’s gifts like tricycles and popguns (both in the toy group, along with the dolls) have taken a big financial hit. Bicyclists and gamers — traditionalist board aficionados and video and digital enthusiasts alike — only slightly less. The tariff impact on drums and roller skates is a bit less dramatic, in the seven-digit “millions” of dollars rather than the nine-digit “hundreds of millions.” Popcorn mostly comes from U.S.-grown corn and doesn’t attract many tariffs. Imported plums (mainly from South America) usually arrive between January and April, so most of the 2025 shipments got through Customs before the tariff decrees hit. As to your tree, no data yet. The administration’s lumber-tariff decree only went live at the end of September, so we don’t yet know how big the extra bill will be.
The Whos, of course, make the best of an unfortunate situation and go out for their sunrise caroling anyway. American parents, couples, and friends next week will probably do likewise. But it shouldn’t have to be this way. Congress has all the power it needs to put a stop to this sort of thing, if it wants to, before the 2026 holidays.
Special note: PPI trade staff will be on holiday through the New Year. Our Trade Fact service will accordingly take a two-week break and resume on January 7. We wish PPI’s friends and readers, at home and abroad, a peaceful and happy holiday season
Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
The White House press office elaborates on Mr. Trump’s doll-rationing idea. So far, they haven’t hinted at things boys should give up, but there’s still a week left.
And PPI’s Alex Kilander and Nate Morris on Trump administration economic policy, tariffs, and their impact on Christmas.
Outlook and prices:
The National Retail Federation’s 2025 holiday survey (out October 16th).
Data:
The New York-based Toy Association reports that Americans spend about $28 billion a year on toys, exactly a quarter of the $112 billion world market. This figure appears to combine some of the relevant tariff codes (toys as such get one 4-digit line, electronics another, sports equipment a third), so the tariff-to-product match is a little awkward.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI inflation calculator.
… and the Federal Reserve’s “FRED” service has 40 years of Consumer Price Index toy data.
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
