Small tabletop creators already feeling squeezed by the Tariff Era

Michael Addison felt like he dodged a bullet by 48 hours. The game designer and owner of Nerdy Pup Games had been waiting for multiple lines of tabletop games to process after sitting in US Customs for two weeks. He originally estimated paying $5,000 just to receive his games, using the (now obsolete) April 4th tariff affecting goods from China, but the chaotic implementation of Trump’s flailing economic demands worked in Addison’s favor. This time.

Speaking to Rascal one week later, Addison’s mood matched that of so many other small and mid-sized companies in the tabletop industry: clutched by impending doom. He had survived one brush with the Trump administration’s tariff policy only to be caught in its totalizing wake. The US president has whipped between two modes of taxation on imported goods: tantrums and flops. One day he raises iron fists against Mexico, Canada, China, and several other key nations that Trump believes is shortchanging his country on international trade; the next brings a 90-day pause on tariffs for everyone but China (though, the 10% global baseline tariff remains in place). [On April 16, while I writing this piece, Trump increased tariffs against Chinese imported goods to a ludicrous 245%]

Tabletop is an industry built on paper, cardboard, and ink, and whose boxes and books are largely manufactured by Chinese companies. Some publishers immediately looked to Vietnam or Europe to move their operations, but most could barely afford to operate before Trump took office. The president’s ostensible dream of bringing jobs back to the US would need several years to support a homegrown tabletop industry. Agility is a luxury, and almost everyone is scrambling to find footing on increasingly loose sand.