Tariffs, Toys, and Transnational Youth: An IPE Analysis of Pop Mart's Labubu Dolls Amid Rising U.S.–China Trade Tensions

This article examines the unexpected popularity of Pop Mart’s Labubu dolls among American youth amidst intensifying U.S.–China trade tensions and escalating tariffs on Chinese imports. Situated within an International Political Economy (IPE) framework, the study challenges conventional assumptions that tariffs suppress demand by raising prices. Instead, it explores how emotionally resonant, symbolically rich cultural goods can thrive under protectionist constraints—particularly when circulated within digital economies that reward affective expression and algorithmic visibility. Employing a qualitative, document-based methodology, the article draws from trade policy data, corporate financial reports, sentiment analysis, and digital culture literature. It argues that Labubu dolls operate not just as toys but as affective commodities embedded in rituals of collecting, sharing, and online performance. The study shows that tariffs, rather than diminishing demand, amplified the dolls’ symbolic appeal by enhancing perceptions of scarcity and emotional value. By integrating concepts from affect theory, platform capitalism, and cultural political economy, the article contributes to a growing body of literature that seeks to understand consumption as a site of identity formation and soft resistance. In doing so, it proposes a revised framework for analyzing trade politics—one that recognizes the emotional, aesthetic, and symbolic dimensions of economic life. The Labubu case illustrates how cross-border cultural flows persist—even intensify—in the face of geopolitical friction, and offers new insights into how youth consumption reshapes the global trade imagination. Download Full Text Pdf