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President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 3, 2025 (Pool via AP).
The global tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump pose a significant threat to independent toy retailers, according to the owners of a toy store in Minnesota.
Mischief Toy Store, based in St. Paul, is among several businesses that have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration. They are challenging the import duty policy introduced in early April. Despite this legal action, comments made by Trump regarding children’s access to toys have underscored the store’s involvement in the lawsuit.
“Well, maybe children will have two dolls instead of 30,” Trump remarked during a cabinet meeting on April 30. “And maybe the two dolls will be a little more expensive than usual.”
That estimate of the toll tariffs will have on the toy business is a severe underestimation, Mischief’s co-owner Dan Marshall says.
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“Something like 80-90% of toys are made in China,” Marshall told Minneapolis-based NBC affiliate KARE. “There are very few companies left making them in the U.S., and this is something that has been going on for 40-50 years. This is not something you can change overnight.”
While government messaging has been contradictory and there are prospects of exceptions, further delays, or a deal-based resolution, Trump instituted 145% tariffs on goods emanating from China — the highest of any import duty on businesses in any nation.
Such numbers equate to something not entirely unlike devastation for Mischief, according to the store’s co-owners and the 27-page lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade on April 24.
“Approximately 95% of the products sold in its store are imported, with 85% of those products coming from China,” the lawsuit reads. “The tariffs levied pursuant to actions challenged herein will likely have a substantial negative impact on Mischief’s business as a result of price increases on those products.”
In comments to the TV station, Marshall predicted the prices for some toys would more than double and that in many other cases, the inventory would simply disappear altogether.
In the litigation, Mischief is teaming up with 10 other businesses across the country to try and stop the tariff regime — calling Trump’s controversial actions “unlawful and unconstitutional.”
The filing is reminiscent of another lawsuit filed in mid-April — both complaints allege Trump exceeded the bounds of his authority by improperly invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) in order to justify the massive expansion of tariffs.
“While IEEPA authorizes the President to take a number of significant actions, the imposition of tariffs is not among them,” the latest filing argues. “Second, the national emergencies declared by the President do not constitute an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ as required by IEEPA, rendering any tariffs imposed pursuant to IEEPA unlawful.”
The lawsuit is seeking a refund of the difference between any tariffs collected from Trump’s new proposal and what they would have paid without the new and much-larger import fees.
“We’re not afraid of Trump,” Marshall told KARE. “The Constitution gives Congress the power to impose tariffs, not the President. Yes, there is the Emergency Powers Act, which allows him to do certain things, but it doesn’t specify tariffs, so everything that he’s done is blatantly illegal in terms of this trade war that he’s started. That’s why we’re suing him.”
Each case was also filed by attorneys with public interest law firms. The first case was filed by the Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian public interest law firm. The present case is being filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is also a libertarian nonprofit law firm. That fact has made Mischief’s involvement in the case something of a strange bedfellows case.
The Minnesota toy company is a self-identified progressive retailer, according to KARE and the Pioneer Press.
“Our whole mission is to promote diversity and representation and social justice,” Marshall told the TV station. “We want to make a safe place for kids of all kinds to find things that they enjoy playing with, and Trump is against all of that.”
The store’s co-owner took stock of the new alliance.
“While we may disagree on other issues, we are all in full agreement on the need to check Trump’s abuses of power,” Marshall said in an open letter obtained by the newspaper, along with co-owners Millie Adelsheim and their daughter Abigail Adelsheim-Marshall.
