Stonemaier Games Joins Lawsuit Against US President Over Tariffs
Yesterday Stonemaier Games announced that it was joining other companies in a lawsuit against the president of the US over tariff overreach.
Americans not taking unfairly imposed tariffs lying down is a tradition that goes all the way back to a time before the United States even existed. No taxation without representation, and the Boston Tea Party are drilled into the curriculum seeingly at every corner.
So it isn’t that much of a surprise to see that companies impacted by capricious tariffs, seemingly imposed, increased, paused, and changed on a whim, are doing what they can to push back against the economic chaos.
According to a new post from Stonemaier Games, makers of Wingspan and the upcoming Vantage, the company will be joining others in a lawsuit to “challenge the unchecked authority of the executive branch to impose tariffs.”
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As a reminder, a tariff is a tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports. If you’d like more of a primer, we’ve covered this before. The Trump tariffs are hitting the economy as a whole, but the tabletop industry is particularly vulnerable owing to the nature of its products.
Which brings us to today, when Stonemaier Gamesan nounced they were joining a lawsuit, along with other companies, to sue. The reason for the lawsuit, at least in Stonemaier Games’ case stems, from the newly imposed (and increased) 145% tariffs imposed under limited authority delegated to the president decades ago. The US Constitution puts tariff power solely in the hands of Congress; which could step in and stopt he Trump tariffs any moment if they so choose.
But in the meantime, companies like Stonemaier games are facing severe, and often unpredictable economic punishment, which the company outlines in a post titled “We Are Suing The President”:
Like many tabletop publishers we started print runs of prducts before the president took office, and now we face an unprecedented $14.50 taiff tax on every $10 we spent on manufacturing with our trusted long-term partner in China. For Stonemaier Games alone (a US based company in which all 8 employees are US citizens), that amounts to upcoming tariff payments of nearly $1.5 million.
With this new norm of a 145% tariff imposed by the President on all exports from China to the US – including products that have been in the manufacturing process for months – we are compelled to take action.
And the lawsuit isn’t the only action Stonemaier Games is taking either. In the same post, Stonemaier outlines some of its options for dealing with its product currently trapped behind tariff payments in China. This includes, selling to other countries, temporarily storing products marked for the US in warehouses in China, and eating the tariff cost on certain out-of-stock products like Finspan, to restock them with minimal cost to consumers.
With a lawsuit going forward, more eyes will start to fall upon the problem that companies like Stonemaier Games and Greater Than Games (recently shuttered) face in the uncertainty of the Trump tariffs.
More on the story as it develops!
