Anyone who’s familiar with video game discourse has likely already heard about Nintendo’s fiercely litigious tendencies.
Fan-made video game mods and piracy sites are just some of the major entities that Nintendo has sent its lawyers after.
Nintendo has long claimed that this itchy lawsuit trigger finger comes from a fierce desire to protect its intellectual properties.
Not unlike Disney, who would never want Mickey Mouse to appear in a “Grand Theft Auto” game, Nintendo doesn’t want to see Super Mario in a first-person shooter game.
So when the administration of President Donald Trump began to use some Pokemon — the most valuable media franchise in the world, which is jointly owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures Inc. — imagery for social media memes, many presumed that a legal entanglement was next.
In September, the Department of Homeland Security used Pokemon’s slogan (“Gotta catch em all”) to put up a post of the work Immigration and Customs Enforcement was doing to capture illegal aliens.
The whole thing was tuned to the original theme song of the beloved ’90s cartoon:
Gotta Catch ‘Em All. pic.twitter.com/qCvflkJGmB
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) September 22, 2025
More recently, the White House X account jumped on the video game zeitgeist and lifted imagery and font from Nintendo’s latest video game release, “Pokemon Pokopia.”
MAGA 🇺🇸⚡️ pic.twitter.com/8QRVP23zGu
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 5, 2026
Now, Nintendo has reportedly launched a lawsuit against the U.S. government — but it’s got nothing to do with protecting their intellectual property.
Instead, it’s got everything to do with protecting Nintendo’s bottom line.
The story appears to have been broken by independent video game site Aftermath, which obtained a complaint filed Friday in the U.S. Court of International Trade by Nintendo of America.
Nintendo is suing the government over Trump’s tariffs, demanding a refund after the “collection of more than $200 billion in tariffs on imports from nearly all countries.”
“This action concerns Defendants’ initiation and administration of unlawful trade measures that have, to date, resulted in the collection of more than $200 billion in tariffs on imports from nearly all countries,” Nintendo’s legal team wrote.
The lawsuit filed by Nintendo seeks to recover money paid under tariffs that were later invalidated by the Supreme Court.
In its February ruling, the high court determined that former President Donald Trump lacked the authority to rely on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to impose those tariffs.
The complaint named several federal agencies and officials as defendants, including the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and former Secretary Kristi Noem, the Office of the United States Trade Representative and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, as well as the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Commissioner Rodney Scott, and the U.S. Department of Commerce alongside Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
According to IGN, Nintendo claimed that Trump’s sudden implementation of tariffs had caused a delay in the pre-ordering of its wildly popular Switch 2 system.
“Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions,” Nintendo told IGN at the time.
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