WS Game Company Experiments With Domestic Monopoly Production to Avoid Tariffs

CEO Jonathan Silva of WS Game Company attempted to manufacture a special 250th-birthday Americana edition of Monopoly within the United States to avoid high import taxes. The effort followed a previous seven-figure tariff bill. While Silva sourced boards from Massachusetts, trays from Pioneer Packaging, and metal tokens from Stateline Industries in Indiana, he could not find a domestic manufacturer capable of producing 10,000 game dice, forcing him to import that specific component.

The domestic production process took over a year and resulted in manufacturing costs at least double those of Chinese production. These delays caused the company to miss the first half of the birthday selling season. The games now retail for $80. Because of these challenges, Silva continues to produce the rest of his company's catalog in China and is awaiting a $6 million shipment for the holiday season.

Greg Ahearn of The Toy Association stated that China's established factory ecosystem makes reshoring low-margin goods like toys impractical. In response to these difficulties, the toy industry is lobbying the U.S.-China Board of Trade for tariff carve-outs on up to $30 billion of Chinese goods.