USA - Sam Rutledge and his wife have a baby due in mid-July, so they thought they had a few more months to research and buy the gear they’ll need. But President Donald Trump’s tariff announcement in early April turned the couple’s slow walk into a sprint.
In the past few weeks, they’ve bought two strollers, a car seat, a nursery glider, a crib and a high chair. All of them are made overseas.
“These are all pretty expensive under normal conditions but, when it became clear tariffs were coming, we decided to buy them in case they became prohibitively expensive,” said Rutledge, who is a high- school physics teacher.
Raising a child in America has never been cheap. In the first year alone, it costs an average of $20,384, according to Baby Center, a parenting website. But tariffs – ranging from 10 per cent for imports from most countries to 145 per cent for imports from China – will make it many times more expensive for new parents.
An estimated 90 per cent of the core baby care products and the parts that go into making baby paraphernalia – from bottles and diaper pails to strollers and car seats – are made in Asia, according to the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, a U. trade group. The vast majority come from China. (Jamaica Gleaner/AP)
