It looks like, contrary to what many feared, the U.S. government will not be raising additional tariffs on video game consoles. U.S. President Donald Trump has stated that he’s suspending the planned additional tariffs on selected good from China.
This morning, the Trump administration announced that it was withdrawing its plans to add additional tariffs on so-called “List 4” goods. These included tabletop games and accessories, toys, and of course, video game consoles which would be hit with a 25% tariff.
The tariffs are part of the administrations ongoing trade war with China. However, according to i09, the President decided to suspend the tariffs after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Japan over the weekend.
In addition to this, both parties have also agreed to further talks. According to a CNBC report, President Trump has stated that renewed trade talks with China have already begun. Talks between both countries originally stalled back in May after the President accused China of reneging on previously agreed upon stipulations.
Last week, as part of their joint letter to the administration, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo state that resulting increase in prices that the tariffs would bring would negatively hurt the industry. The price increases would hurt the ability of domestic retailers to offer promotional prices during the holidays.
However, another big concern for Sony and Microsoft, would be the impending releases of their next-generation consoles. The tariffs, if they had pushed through, would have raised the prices of the PlayStation 5 and the next Xbox. With next-gen console prices generally being higher at launch, the tariffs could have possibly discouraged people from buying these consoles. This would have disastrous for both companies if it happened.
Of course, the console manufacturers aren’t out of the woods just yet. With further talks still set to take place, things could still possibly go sour. Here’s hoping that they don’t, and these tariffs are done for good.
