Unless you’ve somehow managed to avoid all news for the past few weeks, you may have heard that new U.S. President Donald Trump is calling for multiple bans, tariffs, and sanctions against neighboring countries and nations further afield.
This has in turn meant that many are worried about the potential effects any tariffs would have on everyday Americans. While we don’t have the scope to cover the price of groceries and other products, esports and gaming are potential targets for any of Donald Trump’s tariffs. That’s because some of the biggest titles in gaming and esports are international products from around the globe. Here’s how tariffs could affect esports in the coming months.
Image Credit: Mark Taylor from Rockville, USA, CC BY 2.0
Which Tariffs and Bans Could Affect Gaming and Esports?
Most of Trump’s Tariff talk has been centered around Canada and Mexico. In both countries, the gaming industry has a strong presence, with BioWare, Ubisoft, and Bethesda having offices in Canada, and numerous smaller games companies trading in Mexico.
But it’s China, and the threatened tariffs against them in relation to AI and technology, that pose a biggest existential threat to both gaming, and the esports sub-category. The biggest name that springs to mind is Tencent, perhaps the largest gaming company on the planet, who just last month were designated a Chinese military company.
Image Credit: Tencent
As the parent company behind League of Legends creator Riot Games, Tencent could face sanctions on its games including LoL, VALORANT, and others. But Tencent’s reach goes much further, and has a 40% stake in Epic Games, creator of Fortnite, a 30% stake in Larian, creators of Baldur’s Gate 3, and big investments in Krafton and PUBG.
Beyond Tencent, companies including Marvel Rivals publisher NetEase, FunPlus, Gameloft, and Black Myth Wukong creator Game Science (itself founded by former Tencent workers), are all headquartered or have strong ties to China.
Essentially, huge chunks of gaming industry, from Genshin Impact to Fortnite, could be affected if any tariffs were to affect Chinese gaming companies. And that’s before we consider effects to the gaming and computer hardware industries, who rely on semiconductors from Chinese factories for their products.
Should these tariffs come into force, we could potentially see blocks in live service games, titles pulled from store fronts, and even full on bans – was was the case when PUBG Mobile was banned in India.
Should We Be Worried?
The most significant tech company affect by tariffs and restrictions in the U.S. in recent memory was of course the Tiktok closure. But with just a day of no service before its reinstatement, what can we learn from this incident?
Image Credit: Tiktok
Well, for one, the Tiktok closure was in fact orchestrated by Tiktok themselves – as in, there wasn’t a legal precedent or enforcement. Tiktok ended US service on their own. Tiktok would have potentially faced sanctions and enforcement if they didn’t obey an order to close, but the enforcement would still have taken months, potentially years.
Trump’s scattershot approach to potential legislation, both through executive orders and promised laws, has meant that many industries are falling under the crosshairs. But actual enforcement seems unlikely.
For example, recent suggested legislation aimed against Chinese open-source AI DeepSeek was worded to bar “technology or intellectual property” developed in China from being imported into the U.S. Under this wording, the ban would cover electronics, music, games, movies – practically anything. And, perhaps ironically, would likely not cover an online large-language AI model like DeepSeek, which utilizes cloud technology.
Beyond this, there’s no record of any attempts of official enforcement of tariffs against Chinese, Canadian, or Mexican companies by the US, outside of non-official boycotts. In fact, almost all tariffs and imposed sanctions signed by executive order from Trump and his administration have either been delayed or repealed after discussions.
As a result, while the talk is big, there’s currently no substance to the threats. The U.S. is a paper tiger when it comes to the tech trade and potential tariffs – relying too much on China and its own neighbors to commit to a wholesale ban.
But while Donald Trump’s tariffs might not affect gaming, issues like immigration and visa access could affect esports. The U.S. is already one of the more difficult locations to host an esports event, with competitors from Eastern Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia, South America, MENA, and really the whole world, often struggling to enter the country. Now Mexican and Canadian nationals may be added to that list, making visas for esports tournaments an even bigger issue. This could spell doom for events such as ESL One Raleigh, who may find a chunk of their competitors barred from entry to the US.