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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9646147" data-attributes="member: 7035894">I've not heard of anyone using India for miniatures production and I'm pretty aware of what goes on in that hobby space. Maybe there's a domestic Indian market I know nothing about; if so, I'd love to learn more! Citation needed.Edit: I'm not sure if non-hobbyists fully understand the technical expertise that goes into mass producing plastic miniatures of the quality that enthusiasts like me have come to expect. These are not a simple product to make - a factory that produces plastic containers can't just add a run of hyper-detailed miniatures into the mix.As [USER=725]@Cergorach[/USER] asserted, I am currently aware of four countries doing large-scale plastic miniatures production, and they are China, Japan, the UK, and Poland. American companies mostly get their stuff made in China, which means most of their factory investment (e.g. molds) is held in China and not going anywhere.It is far from a simple suggestion to assert that companies can just switch to India for this kind of production:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">India likely doesn't currently have the equipment or expertise.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Companies like Reaper and Dwarven Forge are already heavily invested in Chinese production. The steel molds used to produce miniatures are by far the biggest production expense; financing their production is basically the whole reason those companies need to do KSs for the capital infusion needed to get those molds. If they walk away from China, they are essentially giving up their entire catalogue and starting from scratch.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Even if those weren't issues, US trade policy is currently so unpredictable that it seems completely unfeasible to try to start over in a new country - who's to say that the US administration won't suddenly declare 145% taxes on imports from India next week because reasons?</li> </ul>"Move plastic miniatures production to India" is just not a feasible option - certainly not in the short-medium term (e.g. what currently existing companies would need to survive). The whole point of these import taxes is that they are supposed to motivate American companies to move their production back to America, regardless of how realistic that is in different industries. Thus, chaos.The explicit aim of Trump's trade policy is to upend global trade patterns and reorient them around the US. If successful, these current disruptions are just the beginning, and it is very hard to predict what comes out the other side as pertains to our hobby. Probably, there will be an extreme winnowing effect...which is already starting to occur. Unlike Hasbro, these are mostly small companies without the resources to survive relocating their entire production model.</blockquote>

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