No stupid question: If Nintendo wanted to avoid the heavy tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, how quickly could he drive the Switch 2 production into the US? Trump has already made a partial walkback on tariffs, but let’s make a hypothesis here.
The simple answer is that it takes much more time than you think. The long answer is the same reason why all major hardware manufacturers, like Apple, who rely heavily on non-US factories, are rushing to find alternative solutions.
“This kind of movement will take years,” Joseph Hoody, professor of business economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business Economics, told passthecontroller. “Nintendo needs to establish a final Congressional factory in the United States, meaning finding land, building facilities and employing the workforce.”
According to the Financial Times, Nintendo currently manufactures more than half of its hardware in Vietnam and Cambodia, with the rest in China. To move to the US to assemble the Switch 2 unit, you will need to import all the custom parts and pay customs duties anyway. Plus, according to analysts at Bank of America, if Apple does this, Nintendo will have to fire in the US for higher labor costs. The only way Nintendo can avoid tariffs entirely is to set up more U.S. factories, create all parts of Switch 2 in the state, and extend the timeline even further.
“For example, Apple faces increased costs and risks as China relies on going back to the first Trump administration. And it took years to move a small portion of its production to places like Vietnam or India,” says Foudy.
It was also when Nintendo moved part of the Switch production from China to Vietnam and Cambodia. The decision six years ago may be the only way Nintendo can avoid the astounding 125% tariff on Chinese imports that came into effect Wednesday. Further centralized switch 2 production in these countries can minimize the impact. On Wednesday, Trump dropped all countries’ tariffs up to 10% in China for the next 90 days, but if nothing changes, both Vietnam and Cambodia tariffs could return to some of the best costs when it resurrected.
“[Nintendo]’s best hope is that these other places will at least attack partial trade contracts with the administration, or the industry as a whole will receive exemption,” Hoodie said. “But it is impossible to guess which possibility.”
This is not good news for us who twisted it with the Switch 2’s $450 price tag. US Nintendo President Doug Bowser said the tariffs didn’t take into account prices, but the CEO of investigator DFC Intelligence suspects they made and predicts that there will be no price rise once pre-orders are finally live. If he’s wrong or Trump overturns his decision on a 90-day suspension, the Switch 2 price could be nearing $600. Analysts told Reuters last week that if Apple takes over the cost increase to consumers, the iPhone could rise by 30% to 40%.
So how quickly can Nintendo move two productions to the US? It won’t do that at least before the handheld launches in June. Even Nintendo can’t escape Trump’s tariffs.
“Nintendo, like many manufacturers, is a ship in a storm and struggles to avoid being hit by the biggest waves possible, but has little control over its fate,” says Foudy.
