“I’m rather worried about the restriction of liberties of all sorts in the US”: Spiel des Jahres chairman takes aim at Trump policies, tariffs during awards ceremony

Donald Trump’s tariff policies and the restriction of liberties in the US are threatening the creation and release of new board games, the chairman of the Spiel des Jahres association told attendees at the high-profile award ceremony this year.

Harald Schrapers said [in German, translated via an English dub] onstage at the 2025 Spiel des Jahres – widely considered the biggest award in board gaming – that, “The tariffs Mr Trump has introduced mean that the board game as a production of culture, as a creative work of art, will probably not be there – because the creative minds are in one place in the world, and the ones who produce the games are in a different place in the world.

“Tariffs will mean there’s an obstacle to the production and release of new games, but I’m rather worried about the restriction of liberties of all sorts in the US, because game playing is a cultural good, and creative brains need freedom of press, need free expression.

“And this is why our association is advocating for freedom, and we are also committed to the project ‘Playing for Tolerance’, against antisemitism, against racism and the like.”

That speech was followed by applause and cheering from the audience of board games industry professionals and media, who had come together to discover the winners of this year’s Spiel des Jahres awards – Bomb Busters, Endeavor: Deep Sea and Topp die Torte.

The board game industry – particularly in the US – has been rocked by rising and volatile tariff announcements from President Trump over the past four months, which are proving a significant threat given the hobby’s heavy reliance on China-based manufacturing.

Board game publishers had already warned of inevitable prices increases back in February, when the newly-inaugurated Trump unveiled a 10% tariff on goods being imported from China.

Since then the entire industry – from publishers and manufacturers to retailers, distributors and designers – have been left reeling by the rapidly escalating and unpredictable trade war between the two countries, which saw US tariffs on China reach a high of 145% on April 9.

That figure was cut to 30% for a 90-day period from May 14, as China and the US agreed to engage in talks to bring the trade war to an end.

But despite Trump describing the pause as a “total reset” in relations with China, the still-elevated 30% tariff rate has led to a scramble for shipping container space, and less than four weeks remain until the deadline to reach a new agreement is reached.

High profile casualties of the tariffs within the board game industry to date have included Flat River Group, which laid off the vast majority of staff and suspended new projects at its subsidiary, Spirit Island publisher Greater than Games, in mid-April, blaming “ongoing economic pressures resulting from the international tariff crisis”.

In April crowdfunded board game major CMON announced it was laying off staff and halting new game development and campaign launches, citing the ongoing unpredictability in US tariffs, while online board game retailer Boardlandia’s owners announced towards the end of that month that they had closed down the business, saying the tariffs had added “an unsustainable burden” to their existing financial challenges,

The Spiel des Jahres association has been a backer of the Playing for Tolerance initiative, which aims to fight racism and xenophobia through gaming, for several years, and since late 2018 has been supporting events under the scheme with free copies of Spiel des Jahres-winning games.

Its rare for the association to make an outright political statement targeting a particular country and its leader, however, and the decision for Schrapers to do so very publicly during its flagship annual event is a notable one.

The livestream of this year’s award show, during which Schrapers made the comments, has been viewed about 24,000 times across the original German and the English dubbed versions.

Last year the organisers of the Spiel des Jahres banned one of the prize-winning designers from future events after he wore a watermelon sticker to show his support of Palestine at the award ceremony.

Matteo Menapace was awarded the 2024 Kennerspiel des Jahres prize alongside co-designer Matt Leacock, for their work on climate action-focused game Daybreak – known in Germany as e-mission.

But his decision to wear a watermelon sticker, in the shape of Palestine before it was partitioned to create the state of Israel in the late 1940s, led to a ban by the Spiel des Jahres association, which said the symbol denied the existence of the Jewish state.

A statement from Schrapers released at the time said Menapace had “exceeded the limits of what must be accepted as a legitimate political expression of opinion”, adding that the “relatively small sticker” attached to his t-shirt did not attract the attention of organisers until after he was already on stage collecting the Kennerspiel award.

Menapace provided BoardGameWire with a statement following the event which said his decision to wear the sticker was to show solidarity with Palestinian civilians.