His response to shelves potentially being empty was "Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. So maybe the two dolls will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally.”
There are a few things going on in this comment.
1. Class assumptions: he zooms in on the economic class who would be able to get 30 dolls for their daughter(s) on some occasion, or annually, or whatever. So that's the class coded part of the statement. By downplaying a 15:1 ratio he completely disregards what that means for families who can afford only one doll, or two, or for that matter, any number less than 15. Those daughters don't deserve sh*t obviously.
2. The addition of each doll also cosyting a couple of dollars more tells you the correct ratio is actually smaller than 15:1.
3. The rhetoric around tariffs has completely shifted from it being an amount that China will pay the US, but that it will be reflected in the price tag of common goods that people buy in the market. And this is something that is now an accepted narrative. Trump and his admin no longer pretend like there is no cost to tariffs.
4. What's missing in the statement is also significant. He did not say "instead of 30 doills made in China, you'll get 2 dolls made in the US", which should have been his resopnse. But there is no attention paid to that because increasing (doll) production in the US has never been part of their calculus. IMO. This is about power play and an opportunity to iuse cryptocurrency bribery direct to Trump's account from domestic or foreign sources.
5. And yes, the example of "dolls" is 100% gender coded. It was not about toys for all children that we're dismissing here, but dolls for girls. Feminizing the problem is his way of trivilalizing it. "Forgodssakes" he's saying, "why are you even bothering me about some toys for *girls*?" And of ourse his supplement and testorsterone poisoned based that loves to cosplay Conan the Barbarian when no one is looking is there to nod in violent agreement. It's not like the price of "action figures" for boys is going to go up ...