By Dan Merica, Matthew Choi · The Washington Post (c) 2025
President Donald Trump’s administration wants to encourage more births. His tariffs could be an obstacle.
Car seats, strollers and other essential items for new families are among the items impacted by Trump’s trade war with China. The disquiet in the industry has led expecting families to stock up on items and the owners of baby stores to worry about their future, while companies and trade associations feverishly lobby the Republican administration for an exemption.
“It is a tax on families that are having a baby,” said Natalie Gordon, the founder and CEO of Babylist, an e-commerce marketplace for baby items. “Tariffing these products is completely at odds with that stated goal of increasing birth rate and supporting families.”
To make this point, a range of companies and a trade association have worked to draw attention to the issue and lobby Washington for an exemption to Trump’s tariffs. Babylist and other companies in the industry have launched an ad campaign labeling the tariffs a “baby tax,” and the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association wrote a letter directly to the president urging him to “exclude all juvenile products from these tariffs on Chinese imports … so American parents and caregivers can protect the health and safety of American babies and toddlers.”
The Trump administration has recently been fielding a range of ideas to increase the nation’s falling birth rate, including a $5,000 “baby bonus” to families who have a child. This has been a focus of top administration officials, such as Vice President JD Vance, who has often said it should “bother” people that the U.S. birth rate is declining. “Sounds like a good idea to me,” Trump said in April of the “baby bonus” idea.
But the cost of raising a child, including all the products you need to keep a child safe, is often cited as the reason more couples are opting to go child-free, an issue for the Trump administration’s birth goal as tariffs push prices higher.
While Trump has shown openness to granting exemptions – most recently on tariffs impacting automakers – he has refused to back down from his back-and-forth with China that now has some tariffs at 145 percent. Asked about the tariffs during an interview with ABC released Tuesday, Trump said it was “good” that his tariffs have made it almost cost-prohibitive to get goods from China. “They deserve it,” Trump said
The issue for parents is existential; a handful of essential products, such as car seats, are necessities for babies. Experts like Gordon and others worry that families unable to pay the tariffs on car seats will cut corners to get the products they need, decisions that can create unsafe conditions for children.
Then there is the impact on local businesses that sell car seats, strollers and other baby items directly to consumers.
“I love the idea of manufacturing in America, and I see the value in it. But, right now, businesses are really struggling,” said Elizabeth Mahon, the founder and owner of Three Littles, a Washington, D.C., boutique that sells a range of baby products. “It’s not fearmongering. It’s real. I cannot get inventory.”
Mahon said that when the tariffs were announced, her business saw a surge of purchases, with expecting families buying their needed products early to avoid the tariffs. Some families, she said, even purchased strollers and car seats before they were pregnant, a decision not every family can make because of the large up-front expense that these products represent to a growing family.
That burst, however, has now stopped. And, to make matters worse, the uncertainty has made it nearly impossible for Mahon to get products to sell, even at an elevated tariffed price.
“There are products that we sell that we don’t have any idea when we’re going to get more of them,” said Mahon. “I would happily buy the same products if they were manufactured in America, but they are not, and the problem is the things that we’re selling are necessities. These aren’t just willy-nilly purchases. They are keeping kids safe, and if families cannot find car seats, the direct result is that kids are less safe.”
The threat is real to Mahon and Three Littles. If the boutique is unable to sell any more products because of tariffs, the business owner said she has roughly six months to remain open.