The Pokémon Company International announced through its distribution partner Asmodee, the company that handles the Pokémon Trading Card Game’s in the European Union, that the price of Pokémon Trading Card Game cards will be going up 10% as of September 10th, 2018. This is a similar tariff price increase that also happened in Canada in July 2018, which we reported on at that time.

Asmodee email - September 3rd, 2018

“As of the 22nd June, as part of an ongoing trade dispute with the Trump administration, the European Union imposed retaliatory new import tariffs on certain goods manufactured in the United States, including an additional 10 percent duty on the tariff for playing cards. Unfortunately, this includes the entire Pokémon Trading Card Game range which is made in the USA,” the retail distributor explained.

“Since this development, we have reviewed all available scenarios to be able to defer this extra cost to our customers and have held off any implementation. However, regretfully we must confirm that prices for the Pokémon TCG range will be rising. We have made every effort possible to ensure these price rises are as minimal as possible.

“Prices for Pokémon lines will rise as of September 10th,” they clarify. “Although the tariff is very much out of our hands, we would like to apologise for the inconvenience that we are aware this represents and assure you that when the tariff is removed, or a solution found, that we will rebalance the prices accordingly. We thank you for your understanding.”