"No F35's for the Penguins" Topic

Noticed that Donald and his henchman have just placed separate and specific tariffs on Heard & MacDonald Island.

For anyone unaware these 2 islands are Australian Protectorates deep down in the far southern Indian Ocean. Furthermore, they are UNINHABITED and the penguin colonies there do not actually produce anything that has ever been, or ever could be, exported to the USA.

Clearly the Heard & MacDonald Island penguin colonies are now removed from the White House Christmas Card list for the next 4 years and probably wont be allowed to buy US F35's I'm guessing. And US Naval Drone technology will be out of the question for the penguins

Not really sure what the tariffs will be levied on but there you go …. amateur hour in the Department of Commerce! That Lutnick is a cunning one.

Maybe Hegseth will want to put a secret base on the islands? They are strategically located to prevent the Chinese from dominating the Great Southern Ocean. Would be some interesting naval scenarios between there and Diego Garcia.

What a world we live in now!!

"Despite this, according to export data from the World Bank, the US imported US$1.4m (A$2.23m) of products from Heard Island and McDonald Islands in 2022, nearly all of which was "machinery and electrical" imports. It was not immediately clear what those goods were".

link

I wonder how uninhabited islands export machinery and equipment? Penguins have made significant progress in evolution… ;)
Western journalists are trash… With the exception of a few.

Batman had a lot of trouble with the Penguin. They are cunning critters….

Australia would be subject to a 10 per cent tariff but Norfolk Island was singled out for higher tariffs despite being an Australian territory.

Norfolk Island was facing a 29 per cent tariff, which the US said was in response to the 58 per cent tariff (including currency manipulation and trade barriers) it faced from Norfolk Island.

A spokesperson for the Norfolk Island administrator told SBS News it had "no known exports" to the US.
"There are no known exports from Norfolk Island to the United States of America and no tariffs or known non-tariff trade barriers on goods coming to Norfolk Island," the spokesperson said.

Norfolk Island is an external Australian territory about 1,600km north-east of Sydney. It has a population of around 2,188 people.

Ummm….the people in charge in the US now. They don't seem to know where the various borders are. Are they borderline incompetent?

Penguins shouldn't be allowed to have F-35's. Nor any other aircraft, not even ultralights. They're flightless and have to stay that way.

Perhaps they'd like to crew one of the nuke sub's we're supposed to get on the never-never plan, instead? That way we may be able to put two to sea, if/when we get them.

PS Great pun, Ochoin.

Well I guess if the penguins want those tariffs to end, they better move some manufacturing to the U.S.

I guess their tariff policies against the U.S., in the long run….. laid an egg. 😉

35th for the win!

The smart money seems to be on either an economic disaster &/or a radical volte-face in the near future.

I think Pingu will have the last laugh.

(Ochoin for the win!)

Another score for the gang that can't shoot straight.

Of course the US would want to control and produce its' own guano.

How could anyone call themselves a superpower and be at the whim and mercy of the Heard and MacDonald penguin colonies?

I was chatting with some friends in the US and EU board wargame industries. The immediate reaction, given the preponderance of games manufacture in the Far East, in particular China, is significant price rises for US warganers across the board and non-US games companies moving their distribution centres from the US to Europe

This from Steve Jackson Games today:

An Important Message From Our CEO

Meredith Placko

On April 5th, a 54% tariff goes into effect on a wide range of goods imported from China. For those of us who create boardgames, this is not just a policy change. It's a seismic shift.

At Steve Jackson Games, we are actively assessing what this means for our products, our pricing, and our future plans. We do know that we can't absorb this kind of cost increase without raising prices. We've done our best over the past few years to shield players and retailers from the full brunt of rising freight costs and other increases, but this new tax changes the equation entirely.

Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 USD last year could now cost $4.62 USD before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 USD product. That's not a luxury upcharge; it's survival math.

Some people ask, "Why not manufacture in the U.S.?" I wish we could. But the infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production – specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components – doesn't meaningfully exist here yet. I've gotten quotes. I've talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren't.

We aren't the only company facing this challenge. The entire board game industry is having very difficult conversations right now. For some, this might mean simplifying products or delaying launches. For others, it might mean walking away from titles that are no longer economically viable. And, for what I fear will be too many, it means closing down entirely.

Tariffs, when part of a long-term strategy to bolster domestic manufacturing, can be an effective tool. But that only works when there's a plan to build up the industries needed to take over production. There is no national plan in place to support manufacturing for the types of products we make. This isn't about steel and semiconductors. This is about paper goods, chipboard, wood tokens, plastic trays, and color-matched ink. These new tariffs are imposing huge costs without providing alternatives, and it's going to cost American consumers more at every level of the supply chain.

We want to be transparent with our community. This is real: Prices are going up. We're still determining how much and where.

If you're frustrated, you're not alone. We are too. And if you want to help, write to your elected officials. You can find your representative and senators' contact information at house.gov and senate.gov. Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses. Because right now, it feels like they don't.

We'll keep making games. But we'll be honest when the road gets harder, because we know you care about where your games come from – and about the people who make them.

But the infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production – specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components – doesn't meaningfully exist here yet. I've gotten quotes. I've talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren't.

Not really -- just stretched out. Ever since Paolo Parente's fatal Chinese manufacturing incident that killed DUST, I source the game projects I'm involved in from US printers and manufacturers. They do exist, however, they are much more expensive than the cheap Chinese bulk manufacturers used today.

Example – I want to source a mostly paper/chitboard wargame with mapboards, tokens, dice, etc. The US manufacturer would cost upwards of $40 USD/unit production cost for the game I'm working on. The Chinese manufacturers I queried are closer to $10 USD/unit cost at a x1500 minimum order.

And when I explored the costs with the Chinese manufacturers to "bling" out the game with plastic figures and measuring sticks, special counters and stuff -- it's still about half the per unit cost than if I manufactured it in the US.

As gamers we've gotten hooked on Chinese manufactured board games stuffed full of cardboard and plastic minis and dice and tokens. We expect it. We expect our RPG books to be glossy hardcover and other bling. We wants it, my precious!

And now we're at reality -- things are adjusting, and even without this the Chinese manufacturing model was not sustainable forever, it's just so fraught for disruption.

So I'm hoping that developments I see could lower the cost of production in the US, like Siocast producer miniatures or mass 3D printing of minis, etc. And we do need to get our supply chain in order, because many printers in the US still get their ink and chitboard from…China…

Oh, and one more thought. All of our game production in China is ancillary to the broader family boardgame production market. What the hobby game industry is doing is essentially consuming the "idle time" of Chinese manufacturers who make the games sold by Hasbro and others.

To put that into perspective, some estimates say that Hasbro likely produced and sold between 140 million to 230 million board game units in 2024 (Candy Land, Life, Monopoly, etc.). When hobby game companies source their games with these manufacturers they are leveraging this massive installed manufacturing base that only needs to charge for some special dies and molds to produce what you need, since their capacity is great enough to handle 100 million Hasbro games.

So I wonder if Hasbro and others will be shifting manufacturing out of China, if so, the hobby game industry could also shift there.

"Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 USD USD last year could now cost $4.62 USD USD before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 USD USD product. That's not a luxury upcharge; it's survival math."

OK, I'm a little slow. If your production costs went from $3.00 USD to $4.26 USD per unit, can someone explain to me why the final cost goes from $25.00 USD to $40.00 USD instead of from $25.00 USD to $26.42 USD? Sounds like the extra $13.58 USD would all be extra profit which could all be pocketed and blamed on the tariffs.

I think he may be saying that the cost to ship, warehousing and distribution would also go up.

Sounds like the extra $13.58 USD USD would all be extra profit which could all be pocketed and blamed on the tariffs.

As Grattan54 says, IHG, everyone along the chain, including the retailers, will add 54% (and possibly more) to their prices because "it came from China and we have to!". Most know they don't, a few may think they do, but the end result will be the same. The government may act on that and stamp on a few companies but, if they're as useless as our lot, they'll turn a blind eye "because it's too hard and costly to do anything about those taking advantage.".

Why would the government stamp on it? The point of 54% tariffs is not to make a $25 USD product cost $26.42 USD, it's to make the $25 USD product cost $40 USD so that the consumer buys local.

I don't know how US tariff laws work, Wooly. Here it's basically an import duty (it gets a bit more complicated with foreign service providers), and companies claiming "tariffs" are the reason for unusual price rises have been prosecuted.

I think like many things the new POTUS has put in effect. In less than 100 days in office, some can predict using sound arguments, etc. But we still have to give it more than time. To develop, evolved, etc. some concepts, ideas, etc. that may appear to be "novel", etc. While some other concepts seem to be off the wall without too much proof required.

Yes, I agree. It'll take some weeks to a recession & at least a few months to when the depression starts.

I admire your boundless, if unwarranted, confidence in the regime.

But, to get back on topic, in the meantime, what are the penguins going to do?

@Woollygooseuk

interesting – Kickstarter projects that are games releated very often (virtually always) have Chinese manufacture.

I wonder if this will this mean that there won't be another Reaper bones in the near future? Or a huge release from CMON?

And it goes further – Osprey print in China, Chaosium print in China – actually just about everyone does. GW print in Europe….

Keeping things just "hobby focused" it'll likely cause some disruption to company plans for the next years.

There will be problems for a while. But then production will be established on your own territory. Increasing your own material production in the country will increase the income of those working in the real sector of the economy. And then it will lead to a decrease in costs as production volumes increase.
At one time, the USA produced half of the world's industrial output (I am talking about material things and about real production, where American workers work). Now, if I am not mistaken, only 16%. China's share is 32%.
China is great, the USA is a virtual economy…

Manufacturing would take years to come back, and even then the number of jobs will be minimal compared to the past. AI and robotics have been shrinking large industrial workforces for years. Many of our manufacturing jobs are gone because of this. We are not going back to 1950.

Average citizens are going to pay for these tariffs and the global economy will be destabilized. In case anyone missed the record profits of many US companies in the past four years, record stock market numbers, record low unemployment, GDP and consumer confidence steady, etc. – it was not broken, did not need to be torn down via chain saw. A qualified and documented reduction in government waste, instead of this chaotic drive to make room for the tax cut, might have been a better idea.

The US has a huge foreign debt. The reason is the distortion of the trade balance. You spend more than you earn – don't you?

IHG, if the current manufacturing cost is $3.00 USD, then it will be sold at $6 USD to someone who sells it at $12 USD to a shop which sells it at $25. USD
At $4.62 USD it will become $9.24 USD, then $18.50 USD, then $37. USD
Everyone wants to keep the same return on investment.
And if you make them in America, the higher wages will make sure that it costs $40. USD Either way, you will pay more. The only good news for Americans is that some of that (but not 25% of the final amount) will go to the government in taxes, so you might eventually get to pay a bit less in tax.

Reports from "The Tasty Squid", the official newspaper of the "Heard & MacDonald Island", Colony leader, Mr. Popper sent representatives swimming to Washington DC Immediately. Upon arrival, They waddled to the White House, each dropping a fish at the feet of President Trump, in supplication for him to end the tariffs.

Unlike Zelensky, they wore their Tuxedos for the White House meeting.

Ha! Good one 35th! How did they get to DC with those little wings?

They swam in the ocean and then waddled on land:

Itinerary:

Heard and McDonald Island
Indian ocean – swim
South Atlantic ocean – swim
North Atlantic ocean – swim
Chesapeake bay – swim
Potomac river – swim
Tidal basin, Washington DC – swim
Waddle
Constitution Gardens pond – fish supper available
Waddle
Capitol Reflecting pool – grooming stop
The United States Capitol

17,267 km or 10,729 miles

boundless, if unwarranted, confidence in the regime

Wiki – Stockholm Syndrome

See today's Dork Tower comic.

+1 Stoppage