Tariffs and Board Games

One example of how Trump’s tariffs affect niche industries that Americans value.

Trump’s new protectionist tariff policy has made Americans acutely aware of just how much we rely on other countries to make the things we buy.

Most news stories have been about the ways that higher tariffs affect the prices of widely used, expensive items like cars, furniture, and home appliances. But as recently reported by NPR. the president’s tariffs will also raise costs on a wide range of consumer goods.

One niche product that is of particular interest to me is board games. On the old Mischiefs of Faction blog, I wrote about how tabletop games can teach players about real-world politics and political strategy. So I was alarmed when reporters and columnists began reporting on how Trump’s large tariffs on Chinese imports could harm the board game industry.

Those most obviously affected are consumers, who (despite what Trump claims) will have to pay increased prices for games. They aren’t the only ones who will suffer from tariffs, however.

Many games are sold by local retailers who will be hurt by slower sales. And though they may be tempted to absorb higher costs from tariffs in order to stay competitive, most are small businesses that operate with thin profit margins, so they can’t really keep prices the same for long without going out of business.

I recently visited a local game store and asked one of the employees about what the effect of the tariffs might be. “It’s an unfortunate situation we find ourselves in,” he said. While reassuring me that the store would continue to stock board games and would “try to keep costs down,” he admitted that what they charged customers would nonetheless reflect the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, which could well go up.

Another board game-related entity that will be hurt by tariffs are publishers. Many game publishers are domestic companies that rely on overseas (primarily Chinese) manufacturers to print and assemble the games they develop and market. Andrew Brassley recently wrote on Substack that some are hesitating to produce any new games because tariffs will make production costs prohibitively high. They also have few if any options for making their games in the U.S. or in countries where tariffs are lower.

One might argue that board gaming is just a tiny piece of the domestic economy, and that these harms are negligible. But it’s actually a major industry, and nearly a quarter of the U.S. population plays board games.

It is also just one of the many hobbies popular with 60% or more of Americans – whether it be video gaming, gardening, painting, playing an instrument, or making model railroads – that will be negatively affected by higher tariffs.

Making people’s recreational activities more expensive and putting small domestic businesses at risk of failure strikes me as remarkably bad politics (not to mention bad economics), which is one of the reasons why I am not surprised that Trump has already started scaling back his steep tariffs against Chinese imports and will likely keep doing so.

But in the meantime, I worry about how the tariffs that are still in place will make it much harder for board gamers, the companies that develop and market games, and the neighborhood stores that sell them to continue to do what they love.