Paulina Gamino runs the numbers at Misfit Toys in Houston. A toy that cost $25 before the tariffs now runs $40 to $45. She knows exactly who cannot afford the difference. You do too. You know the family. They walk in, the kid grabs something off the shelf, and the parent checks the price tag and puts it back. That scene plays out a hundred times a day in stores across the country, and the people who wrote the tariff policy will never see it.
$151 Billion in Emergency Tariffs, Paid by American Businesses
Who
Paulina Gamino, operations manager at Misfit Toys in Houston, watching $25 toys become $45 items her customers cannot afford
The advocacy group We Pay the Tariffs analyzed Census Bureau trade data and found that Trump's emergency tariffs cost American businesses $151 billion in the year ending February 2026. The president signed the executive order in April 2025 under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, claiming the tariffs would protect American businesses and workers. The Supreme Court ruled the tariffs were applied illegally. The U.S. Court of International Trade ordered refunds. The administration has issued zero dollars back.
Trump's emergency tariffs cost American businesses $151 billion in the year ending February 2026, according to We Pay the Tariffs analysis of Census data
Verified
Zero. Not a delayed payment. Not a processing backlog. Nothing.
Who Absorbs the Cost When Target Won't?
Gamino's husband Daniel Rivera owns the store. He laid out the math for NPR. Seventy to eighty percent of their products are used, vintage items. But new toys tied to summer blockbusters and Christmas drive foot traffic. Those new toys come from China and Japan. Since the tariffs hit, Rivera cannot afford to stock up for either season.
$888 million in tariffs levied on toys and dolls from January to July 2025 alone, per the Progressive Policy Institute
Verified
The big-box retailers absorb the costs. Target, Walmart, Amazon sell soap, drinks, and groceries alongside toys. A parent walking through Target grabs a toy because they are already there. A store like Misfit Toys survives on people making the trip specifically. When a $25 toy costs $45, fewer people make that trip.
The big-box retailers will be fine. People go to Target, also for soap and, you know, drinks and food. And while they're there, the kids will grab a toy. But here we will not be getting any of that summer action, any of that money. -- Daniel Rivera, Misfit Toys owner
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Create Free AccountHow Much Did Tariffs Cost the Toy Industry Alone?
At Issue
Supreme Court ruled IEEPA tariffs illegal, Court of International Trade ordered refunds, but the administration has issued zero dollars back
The Progressive Policy Institute calculated that Trump's tariffs added $888 million in costs to toys and dolls from January to July 2025 alone. That figure covers six months of a policy the courts later ruled illegal. The full-year damage runs higher. Meanwhile, Xinhua reported that U.S. toy sales returned to growth in 2025, but tariffs dragged on profit margins across the industry.
Growth in sales and decline in profits. Translation: stores sold more units at worse margins, meaning more work for less money. Ask any small-business owner if that math sounds familiar.
“I have no expectation that we will see this money. We are the last in the line, as a small mom-and-pop who's not buying huge quantities. -- Paulina Gamino, Misfit Toys
Brass Instruments in Fort Worth: 40% Tariffs on Student Trombones
Kacie Wright manages Houghton Horns near Fort Worth, Texas. The shop sells student instruments from China and professional instruments from Germany, the UK, and Japan. Wright told NPR that tariffs hit 40%. The store absorbed some and raised prices 20%. They stopped including mouthpieces and cleaning kits. A customer now pays 20% more for less product.
A custom trombone might cost $7,000 today. Tomorrow the tariff changes and the price becomes $6,000 or $9,000. Wright cannot quote customers a final price because the policy shifts without warning. A family saving for a student instrument faces a moving target set by people who will never sit in a middle school band concert.
The Onshoring Fantasy Falls Apart on Raw Materials
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Learn moreRyan Guay runs FLATED in Missoula, Montana, selling inflatable truck camper shells manufactured in Vietnam. He told NPR the onshoring argument ignores a basic fact: the raw materials are not produced in the United States. Even products assembled domestically would still require imported inputs subject to tariffs. Guay said the tariffs make it easier for Asian factories to cut out American businesses entirely and sell directly on Amazon.
Follow that logic. The policy designed to bring manufacturing home pushes foreign factories to bypass American companies altogether. The middleman gets eliminated. The American business owner becomes the casualty of the policy that claimed to protect them.
Courts Said Pay Them Back. The Administration Said Nothing.
The Supreme Court ruled the IEEPA tariffs illegal. The Court of International Trade ordered refunds. The Treasury Department did not respond to NPR's request for comment about when or whether refunds would happen. Trump imposed new tariffs on steel, aluminum, and pharmaceuticals to replace the struck-down ones.
Gamino does not expect to see a refund. She told NPR her store is last in line as a small mom-and-pop operation. Rivera said Misfit Toys shelved its expansion plans for as long as Trump remains in the White House. The reason is simple: the president could raise tariffs again tomorrow.
Luis Torres, senior business economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, confirmed the pattern: increased costs, higher selling prices, margin losses, and above all, uncertainty. A year of Liberation Day and the liberated are the corporations large enough to absorb the hit. The captives are the families staring at a $45 price tag on a toy their kid wanted, in a store that might not be open next Christmas.
