Cephalofair Games, publisher of the popular board games Gloomhaven and Frosthaven, has critiqued the recent tariff pause negotiated by the United States and China. COO Price Johnson posted his thoughts via social media on May 12, stating “that doesn’t get my praise or thanks. That’s more/less the bare minimum step to avoid pandemic-level trade disruption.”
The tariff pause is a 90-day agreement that brings the US tariffs on Chinese goods down from 145% to 30%. This is apparently to allow both nations more time to negotiate a trade agreement.
Initially, this seemed like a rare glimmer of hope for the board game industry, which has already seen major delays, layoffs, and closures as a consequence of the tariff hikes. Johnson, however, warns readers not to get too optimistic. Johnson points out that the current 30% tariff on Chinese-imported products is “10% higher than the effective embargo started over a month ago and 30% higher than we started this year”.
“Before we latch too closely on today’s ‘tariff pause’, a reminder that anything over 50% was already having a cataclysmic impact on multiple industries of small and medium enterprises”, he writes. “Anything over 50%, and certainly 100%, was effectively an embargo that brought China-US trade to a screeching halt”.
While Johnson claims that 90 days is “enough time to get existing product out of China”, he adds that it “severely limits our ability to plan and execute the rest of this year, assuming rates don’t fall further or, worse, raise again”. “That’s not a win or a ‘historic deal'”, Johnson says.
For now, uncertainty continues to pervade the tabletop industry. If you’d like something certain, here are the best board games that we’re certain you should play. Or, if you’d like to share your thoughts about tariffs in the world of tabletop, join us in the Wargamer Discord for a discussion.
Source: Wargamer
