Earlier Monday President Trump unveiled his latest trade-war masterstroke—caving to China and pretending he hadn’t.
Before that, when it came to his economic message, he was mostly playing with dolls.
“Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30,” Trump said last week, when asked if his tariffs might lead to a supply-chain shortage at Christmas.
“A young lady, a 10-year-old girl, 9-year-old girl, 15-year-old girl, doesn’t need 37 dolls,” he said on Air Force One, gaggling with reporters.
“I don’t think that a beautiful baby girl needs—that’s 11 years old—needs to have 30 dolls,” he said on Meet the Press, suggesting he doesn’t know how old babies are.
It’s remarkable, almost a form of genius, how effortlessly Trump’s train of thought slides onto the casual misogyny track. Faced with backlash to his economic chaos, his first instinct is to reassure Americans that only girl stuff will be harmed.
But there’s a one problem with the president’s promise. Nobody—and I say this with pride—loves their toys more than straight adult men. If Trump comes for our playtime, we’re not going to take it well.
I know this from personal experience. While I should probably be embarrassed to put this in print, until recently, I found Trump’s economic whiplash disconcerting on a theoretical rather than visceral level. Economists warning of a recession? What else is new. Stock market plummeting? I can wait it out.
Then, earlier this week, I read that because of the tariffs, FCS is pausing all sales in the United States.
If you don’t surf, that means nothing. If you’re a surfer, however, the idea that one of the world’s two large-scale fin manufacturers might suspend imports is not just worrisome but calamitous, a niche Chernobyl. It’s like telling soda drinkers that Pepsi products will no longer appear on shelves.
For much of my life, I wouldn’t have understood this. But like many men, I picked up a hobby in my mid-thirties, around the time making new friends went from “relatively straightforward” to “the most difficult thing in the entire world.” The hobby I chose was surfing. I assumed I’d be a natural. After discovering I was not a natural, I learned that acquiring gear is easier than acquiring skill.
(Also, because I’m also the kind of person who turns his hobbies into work, I wrote a memoir about my surf-learning experience, which I am legally obligated to inform you is out in June and available for pre-order.)
Fulfilling my destiny as a not-quite-middle-aged man, I now have a shed full of surfboards, several with FCS fins. Like most guy gear, my boards are functional objects, marvels of engineering and technology, designed for maximum durability and peak performance.
Also, they are my dolls. And if Trump tries to mess with them, I will throw a fit.
It’s not just surfers who watching tariffs threaten their leisure time. Golf clubs. Power tools. Mixology equipment. Fishing gear. Videogame consoles. Kitchen gadgets that take up a square yard of counter space and that you use exactly once. They’re about to become much more expensive—if they’re available at all.
Here, I’d like to take a break from gender stereotyping and acknowledge that plenty of women enjoy surfing and golfing and DIY home-improvement projects and food dehydration. Now I’d like to resume gender stereotyping and say that even so, women will handle the loss of their toys far better than men.
This is because—according to sources I’ve consulted on the subject—women frequently communicate via words alone. Most guys don’t have that luxury. We need stuff to serve as a buffer. When I say to my brother-in-law Matt, whom I surf with often in New Jersey, “Do you think I could try riding the 5’10” twin-fin you picked up at the garage sale?” I’m conveying a range of emotions I do not otherwise know how to express.
Also, for better or worse, toys are essential to American men’s sense of self-worth. Even today, when most U.S. households are dual-income and men aren’t expected to be sole providers, we define ourselves by their ability to financially contribute. But luxury items—whether big-ticket purchases like a guitar or ATV or little treats like a new wetsuit for spring—are proof you’re doing more than just getting by. You have extra. You’re doing well.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently declared that “access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream.” Fair enough. And easy for a guy worth $500 million to say. But for most Americans, having leisure time, and the means to enjoy it, is part of what allows you to feel like a success even if you’re not among the super-rich. Nobody, of any gender, likes getting poorer. But for most men, working hard and losing ground isn’t just infuriating and frightening. It’s emasculating.
The irony is that no one understood this better than President Manosphere. Trump won a second term by persuading working-class men that he could restore their sense of pride, not in general, but as men. Now that he’s in office, he seems to have forgotten what got him there.
The MAGA and MAHA and Joe Rogan-superfan surfers I’ve encountered—and I’ve encountered plenty—didn’t vote for Trump because they wanted an economic central planner to force them to work in a factory. They voted for Trump because they thought he’d help them able to afford more stuff, and to spend more time doing things they actually enjoy.
So far, the male-specific backlash has been relatively muted. Maybe it will stay that way.
FCS says it hopes to find a way to un-pause fin sales shortly, and perhaps the new China tariff rate, 30 percent instead of 145 percent, will allow them and other gear manufacturers to do just that. But a 30 percent tariff is still a major new tax on American consumers. And if Trump continues a trade policy that drives prices higher and paralyzes businesses with uncertainty, it won’t just be girls with dolls who find that the president is putting fun further out of reach.
If that happens, men across America, whether they voted for Trump or not, will feel shocked, threatened, betrayed, and sad.
And to borrow a phrase, Hell hath no fury like a man forced to feel something against his will.
David Litt is a former speechwriter for President Obama, the New York Times bestselling author of “Thanks, Obama” and “Democracy in One Book or Less,” and a semi-finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. His newest book, “It’s Only Drowning: A True Story of Learning to Surf and the Search for Common Ground,” will be published in June by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. He also writes Word Salad, a free newsletter.
The post Opinion: Bro, I’m Here to Tell You: Trump’s Coming for Your Toys with His Dumb** Tariffs appeared first on The Daily Beast.
