'Devastating': US board game industry 'treading water' as it begs Trump to reverse course
America's game company industry is begging President Donald Trump to reconsider his economic agenda, with one company co-founder telling CNN on Monday afternoon they're "treading water" due to his trade war with China.
The Trump administration increased tariffs on Chinese imports, raising the baseline tariff rate to 145 percent. China then retaliated with tariffs of at least 125 percent on U.S. goods.
Jamey Stegmaier, co-founder of Stonemaier Games, joined CNN's "The Lead" with host Jake Tapper to discuss the president's policies and their effect on the board game industry.
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"Jamie, your company creates all sorts of original board games. Can you explain to us why tariffs have been detrimental to the gaming industry in particular?" asked Tapper, who has interviewed a number of small businesses to gauge their thoughts on Trump's tariff policies.
Stegmaier said the tabletop board game industry makes most of its games in China, which he said has gotten "really, really good at making all the little bits and pieces and cards and boards that we put into modern hobby board games."
When Tapper asked Stegmaier what effect the tariffs had on his industry in terms of uncertainty, Stegmaier said they've made print runs of reprints and new games back before the tariffs. Now that they're facing the end of production, they're ready to ship the games to the United States.
But to do that, they now have to pay $14.50 for every $10 they spend making those games in China.
"For us at Stonemaier Games, that amounts to around — if we shipped all those games that we started making in January — it would amount to around $1.5 million in tariffs that we would have to pay. And that's — that's devastating," he said.
The industry sued Trump to get the tariffs overturned. Stegmaier said as a board game publisher, he wants to diversify his supply chain, but said the government ought to incentivize that through subsidies.
"Not punish us for making some components that we simply can't make here in the U.S.," he said.
Stegmaier then issued a dire plea to Trump.
"I'm worried about what the future holds. For now, we're treading water. We're weathering the storm. We're taking a more conservative approach to the amount of games that we decide to make for the holiday print run, which we're going to start soon," he said.
"If they hold for months or even years, it will probably be largely the end of most board game publishers," he lamented.