The boss of one of America’s biggest toy firms has disclosed how Donald Trump’s tariffs—now declared largely illegal by the Supreme Court—devastated his business. “2025 was a bad year for us,” Jay Foreman, CEO of Basic Fun!, which manufactures Care Bears and Lincoln Logs, said. “We ended up losing 20 percent of our business in 2025. We lost eight, nine weeks of shipping during the Liberation Day period,” he added, referring to the first batch of Trump’s trade levies, announced last April. Describing his business operations as “paralyzed” in the aftermath of those measures, Foreman expressed cautious hope for this year. He nevertheless warned that the chief threat remains the difficulty in predicting the next moves from Trump, who told parents repeatedly last year to buy their children fewer gifts for Christmas. “The only factor that my colleagues in the industry are all worried about is the volatility of the president and members of his administration,” Foreman said. “I feel like there is a sword on a string dangling over my business and have for over a year.”
Read it at Politico Playbook
