American companies that import goods from China are running against the clock.
The Trump administration reduced tariffs on China from 145% to 30%. But those lower rates are set to elapse after 90 days.
“I definitely felt a sense of relief,” said Jamey Stegmaier, board game designer and president of Stonemaier Games. “There was also a sense of, why? Why did any of these tariffs need to exist in the first place in a global economy, when we’re working together with people from around the world to create something new and special, to bring joy to tabletops worldwide?”
Stegmaier’s company, known for deluxe strategy games like “Wingspan” and “Scythe,” operates out of St. Louis, Missouri, but manufactures games in China. The “Liberation Day” 145% tariff threatened his industry so profoundly that he decided to sue the Trump administration over its authority to levy such taxes.
“Our budgets are tighter, we’re having to make decisions about whether or not to attend game conventions — there are companies that have already gone under,” said Stegmaier. “These tariffs have brought to light the problem when the administration takes control of taxes, which are typically the responsibility and the authority of Congress — even with the decrease, I still believe that the tariffs are unconstitutional.”
Meanwhile, Stegmaier is rushing to import games from China before the 90-day window closes.
“To get bookings on ships from China to the U.S. is much more difficult than normal,” he said. “I don’t know the final cost yet, but I anticipate that they will be much more expensive than usual.”
President Trump sees these tariffs as a way to incentivize companies to make more products in the United States. Why don’t you manufacture these games here?
“The reason that board games like the ones that we make aren’t made in the US is largely due to the level of precision and variety and customization that China has got really, really good at handling at scale. For example, ‘Wingspan’ has custom wooden dice. It has a fairly elaborate series of punch boards that have different die cuts. It has wooden egg tokens, these very specific custom wooden tokens that we make. And our manufacturer in China is very good at making these specific components at scale. For those that we do want to try to make in the US, even just getting different die cut for a punch board or a non-standard box size or a mold for a custom die or custom miniature — those are astronomically more expensive than they are in China.”
If you made your games simpler, would it be more financially viable to make these products in the U.S.?
“That’s actually one of the things that I’ve been pondering over the last month. The main impact of the 145% tariffs was what types of games can we consider that we can make in the U.S. at scale. The types of games that we can make in the U.S. are simple card games. Honestly, I don’t think that we can make any products that we already make consistently — we can’t make those in the U.S. because we already have a partner that can make those games consistently in China. And so no matter what the tariffs were going to be, we were going to continue to make those products in China and only consider the potential of new, simpler products made in the US in the future.”
What is the effect of these relaxed tariffs? How are you and other board game makers operating in this environment?
“We’ve been working on games for years that have either entered production before the tariffs existed or are getting ready to enter production now. It isn’t possible just to halt production on those things and quickly switch over to a new factory. And that’s incredibly disruptive to the entire process that we’ve already invested in. And really, one of the issues with the tariffs, whether they’re 30% or 145%, is that there was no grace period to take into consideration all the investments that small businesses have made in products that started production before the tariffs existed. We started a giant print run of around 250,000 units back in January. I knew there might be some small tariffs, but I did not expect them to grow from 20% to 145%. The tariffs did not take into consideration the investments that small businesses like mine tried to make.”
“But the one impact that is still in play due to 30% tariffs, which will be in place for the next 90 days, hopefully, is that that is not enough time for companies like mine who are currently planning the size of our holiday print runs for the winter holiday season. It’s not enough time for us to finish production or even to start and finish production on those products. So even with the current tariffs, there is still a lot of uncertainty around how big of a holiday print run we need to make. And as a result, we are making a much more modest holiday print run than normal. And I expect other businesses will do the same.”
Is there an alternative supply chain route for you all elsewhere, perhaps in Asia that doesn’t have as high a tariff rate?
“We do manufacture 100% of the games that we make in China. We ship around 65% of them to the U.S. The other 35% go to the rest of the world. And we are working with our partner in China, Panda, which is actually a Canadian company, to potentially start moving some production to Brazil. That is our current plan.”
____
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2025 WBUR
