Mattel CEO says toy manufacturing won't come to America, but price hikes will
Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz says toy manufacturing will not come to America, but price increases will.
Of course it won't. It would take years to move manufacturing to the USA. Building factories, hiring and training workers, none of that can happen over months. It's also a huge expenditure for the business which, along with higher payroll costs, would be passed on to consumers. Costs are going to go up weather they move manufacturing here or not so why not take the path of least resistance and just pass on the tariff costs?
Especially when the US Government changes its mind about tariffs every few minutes. No one can plan major infrastructure changes around that.
And they never were going to pay labor in America. Our world economic systems created this problem with the US at the head. Now that we are entering late stages of capitalism we want to cry about things being unfair... We have to rethink the whole world economy not just what the US is doing.
And it's not just the assembly factories that are the problem. Why the hell would you create a factory here when your entire supply chain is going to be hit by tariffs anyway. Not only are you still having to increase prices, now you're less competitive than offshore factories due to labor, input, and real estate costs. And why would you move supply chain factories here only for them to have to deal with both the above problems and retaliatory tariffs. The US market isn't worth that for a whole lot of things.
I had a comment like this for aptera which is being built in the us but several of its most expensive components. Battery and the carbon fiber shell are built in asia and europe respectively. Seems to me they would be best off manufacturing in like ireland or something since it won't make a big difference in how much they charge folks but would lower costs for selling around the world outside the us. Now given this is when high tarrifs are everywhere and of course day to day who knows what they will be. Still if I was a business the best long term would be stay out of the us the way I see it.
Also, why invest in moving your entire manufacturing side to the US when you can be reasonably sure that the tariff fad will be over in 4 years at minimum, 10 years max?
Also, there's absolutely no indication that Americans want to be working at poverty wages in an assembly plant. None of this makes sense even if it "worked."
Wouldn’t robots partially take over the assembly plants anyway? They work 24/7, no complaints, no personal lives. Ideal worker.
But guuuuuys, everybody's supposed to lie and make less money and become slaves :( if you don't do that, what's this last 50 years of political gamesmanship and duplicity and propaganda been for??
It’s also a huge expenditure for the business which, along with higher payroll costs, would be passed on to consumers.
Margins on Matel products have historically been high. Strictly speaking, they could still function as a business if they insourced the manufacturing and materials, paid prevailing wage rates, and assumed their workers would also be their clients. But the impact on profits would be enormous. The degree to which Matel could produce surplus waste and assume administrative overhead would be crimped significantly. What incentive do C-levels and board members have to make this kind of change?
Costs are going to go up weather they move manufacturing here or not so why not take the path of least resistance and just pass on the tariff costs?
The US isn't the only buyer of Matel products. Why bother insourcing to appease the current US president when they can pivot their sales to international consumer markets instead? Maybe they need to lower their prices to sell into markets into the lower-wage BRICS. But that's so much easier than moving their entire industrial stateside.
it’ll. never. happen.
why? because profit is why the corps exist.
Yes it's impossible
Oh come on. Just get 2 barbies instead of 30, unpatriotic bitches.
I realize it's a joke, but donvict and his shitstain crew have managed to now politicize not only nearly every other fucking thing, but now they have managed it for toys, too.
I mean, they managed to politicize the fucking weather, and that's on top of fact-based reporting, science, medicine, vaccines, social distancing measures, etc....
It’s such a crazy out of touch statement to make… mind boggling
I imagine Felon Drink Bleach might not be happy with such bold mainstream media news headlines indicating that his key objectives aren't being met.
he has been obsessed recently with explaining how "beautiful little girls" can just live with fewer dolls :-/
anyone that looks like ivanka specifically.
He is going to tariff Mattel because that's all he knows how to do.
I wonder if he has bothered to figure out what the word tariff means yet.
"Learning" implies he doesn't already know everything there is to know about everything, so of course he hasn't done it. Or will ever do it.
Damn, and my kid just asked for 30 dolls for Christmas.
Damn, and my kid just asked for 30 dolls for Christmas.
Is your last name Trump?
2 dolls, how about no dolls, you don't need dolls in the mines.
Here, play with this pixelated pickaxe.
Only doll ill buy is a Trump voodoo one.
you will probably needs to get one ifs dyed rat hair first.
Ironically, the only toy that will be made in the USA.
Americans mostly don't even want to do the manual labor jobs which have always been available in the US, like residential construction or picking crops. And the oligarchs want to both reduce immigration and re-industrialize? It's going to be comically unpopular.
Easy: just set up labor camps and put any ”undesirables” there.
This is largely untrue. I have worked in manufacturing my entire adult life and in my experience people are very eager to do manual labor type jobs if those jobs pay well and provide stability. The problem is that most of them don't. It would make everything more expensive to pay everyone doing these jobs better but it would be worth it longer term by making a society that doesn't just rely on there being a constant supply of an artificial second class of people that can be underpaid and exploited with impunity. When people say "nobody wants to work manual jobs..." the implied rest of that sentence is "...to make the same amount of money as someone working retail."
I hate Trump and his idiotic tariffs, but this argument that we need immigrants to do all the jobs Americans don't want to do is based on the racist idea that Americans are too good to do these jobs- the reality is, they are simply not desperate enough to take them for the amount of pay that is being offered. It's a blatantly false narrative and it only serves to harm anyone left of Mussolini.
The manual labor willingness drops off in the 40s as people's health begin to deteriorates people who work in manufacturing tend to drink and smoke and be arthritic with failing discs and knees by 55. White collar jobs have a big advantage with aging, which is why your average age in a factory skews young.
Yeah, that's a more nuanced take than mine. I sadly doubt this country will actually do anything to improve pay equality however, which I would agree lies at the root of the unpopularity of those jobs.
And the oligarchs want to both reduce immigration and re-industrialize?
No, the oligarchs want to bring in even more cheap labor from 3rd world countries to maximize profits.
Americans mostly don’t even want to do the manual labor jobs which have always been available in the US, like residential construction or picking crops.
Capitalism 101: When you don't have enough workers, you need to raise wages. Not demand a government bailout via the immigration system.
No the oligarchs don't want any of that. They want other shit they are getting like less governmental oversight but they are also getting this shit no one asked for because the people getting them the first thing are vastly dumber than they anticipated.
The first thing going so well they can't really be bothered to deal with the second thing right now.
But muh 11 year old baby girl dosent need 30 dolls!!!11!1!!
Only 2 or 3 or 4!
And they might be more expensive than 30 dolls
It is cheaper for them to take the sales loss that comes with raising prices rather than it would be to take any other approach. Austerity and Tariffs make the perfect economic shit sandwich.
It doesn’t help that the tariffs are nonsensical. It’s not even like they’re doing austerity with correctly targeted tariffs. Incredible work, masterful gambit, art of the deal they’re saying.
I still think trump is going after all manufacturing, tech and science, so he can control it. It's a very mob thing to do and it's kind of working. All of tech showed up at his inauguration and gave a shit ton of money. I'm willing to guess that manufacturing did too, they're just not household names.
Read all about it in this month’s riveting issue of Duh.
India boasts the most competitive labor costs in Asia, with a national-level minimum daily wage of approximately INR 178 (equivalent to US$2.13), translating to around INR 5340 (approximately US$63.97) per month.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/06/mattel-ceo-toy-manufacturing-trump-tariffs.html
With economics like that, it completely makes sense that tariffs will bring manufacturing back to the USA. /s
Trump's extortion through tarrif's plan is working so well huh? What a fucking joke.
Do you want to tell them that people with a diminishing budget and ballooning costs will simply stop buying toys, or shall I?
Christmas is going to be awesome.
Can't robots make toys for us in 2025? We shouldn't need to use humans at slavery level wages.
The robots in China are cheaper, especially when there are tariffs to import them.
The CEOs are too woke and won't go along with donvict's plans!
^ millions of howling magashitgibbons, probably.
😂
damn elf union and their gumdrop benefits....
Plastic widgets isn't coming back.
To be honest they were super cheap. A Barbie doll or another name brand toy cost the same as the euro store crap this side of the pond. When I visited the states I brought Barbie's and Levi's jeans as souvenirs! Literally the same price as the shitty key rings I bought at the airport.