Baby Retailer Bankrupts, Blames Trump Tariffs—Not Corporate Greed
The Independent breathlessly reports that Carter's will close 150 stores and fire 15% of its workforce, blaming up to $250 million in 'extra costs' on Trump’s tariffs. (Because nothing says sound business strategy like waiting years to adjust to 'tariffs' you knew about.) Carter's executives, who saw their CEO compensation surge to $8.7 million in 2023, according to their own SEC filings,
apparently couldn't find a way to absorb these alleged costs without kicking thousands of employees to the curb and shuttering brick-and-mortar stores. This narrative—a simple causation between a single policy and catastrophic retail failure—conveniently ignores decades of corporate financial engineering, the rise of e-commerce, and executive decisions that ultimately prioritize shareholder
returns over employee stability or economic resilience. One might wonder if their executive bonuses will also be 'tariffed' away. Instead of a nuanced look at retail's brutal landscape, or perhaps Carter's own strategic missteps, The Independent offers a tidy, politically charged headline. It’s almost as if blaming one villain is easier than dissecting complex economic realities. How many
quarterly earnings calls gloss over structural issues when there’s a convenient boogeyman?