Trump’s tariffs ‘pause’ could help Nintendo ship more Switch 2s

President Donald Trump’s “90-day pause” on high tariffs for many countries could be good news for Nintendo. The shift marks an opportunity for the company to ship more Switch 2 units from Vietnam to the US. And customs data reported on by Bloomberg suggests the company has already been stockpiling Switch 2 units from Vietnam this year ahead of the console’s June 5th launch date.

Before the pause, the Trump administration had placed a 46 percent tariff on Vietnam, where Nintendo manufactures some of its hardware. Concerns over the tariffs caused Nintendo to delay its planned April 9th date for Switch 2 preorders in the US. Right now, a 10 percent tariff is still in place for countries that haven’t retaliated against Trump’s tariffs, so any consoles shipped to the US from Vietnam will, for the time being, be hit with a smaller tariff than before.

Nintendo has already said that it’s shipped “some” Switch 2 inventory to the US, which could help it get ahead of what’s expected to be high demand for the console. According to Bloomberg, one of the Nintendo Switch 2’s primary assemblers in Vietnam has significantly ramped up how many devices it’s shipped to the US in the past couple months.

“Hosiden Corp., one of three main Switch 2 assemblers, shipped more devices in February to the US from Vietnam than in the previous six months combined, according to customs data provided by NBD,” Bloomberg says. A chart of NBD data in the article says that Vietnam exported 383,000 game console units to the US in January and more than 725,000 game console units to the US in February.

Nintendo hasn’t said when preorders in the US (and Canada) might open or if the Switch 2 will have a higher price to account for tariffs. But with the lower tariff in place for now, it seems likely that Nintendo is going to try and bring as many Switch 2 consoles to the US before higher tariffs potentially come into effect down the line.