We can do injection molding in the US, and probably for nearly the same price (as paid by the customer). The reason things like this are produced overseas is to maximize profit collected by the companies, and secondarily to skirt environmental laws (for even higher profits).
The tariffs are stupid, but the reason for so much of the current shit situation is naked greed and short-sighted profit chasing.
The reason things like this are produced overseas is to maximize profit
No the reason is that Lego is an “overseas” company. From a country with much better regulation than USA on all counts, from environmental protection to workers rights.
But apart from that Lego has a huge factory in Virginia, so there absolutely is local production in USA.
Lego is manufactured in Denmark, with a super advanced fully-automated factory. They could build new factories in the US, but then it would be far away from their engineers and based in a country with a failing economy.
Heres a presentation from the Lego engineers that automate the computer systems:
Yes in general, but it’s not really economical for Lego to stand up a manufacturing facility in every country they sell in. If their current factory produces enough parts to meet their needs it doesn’t make any sense to open new factories just to skirt tariffs. It wouldn’t be a problem in the first place if the tariffs weren’t ridiculously high. You can’t blame Lego for not wanting to saddle their customers with tariffs on something that’s free to people living in sane countries.
Lego already makes shit all over the world. Look at the back of one of the big kits and there’s a wildly long list of countries of manufacture.
They probably even make some parts here in the US.
The problem is they have tons of parts, and only one or two factories making any given part (other than really common ones maybe). They would have to duplicate each individual mold to have wholly state-side supply. That’s where it becomes impractical.
They would probably have to try to figure out what they were paying for each part from a different country of manufacture, and that would also be a nightmare.
Mega Bloks used to be a privately owned company based in Canada. You may remember the old Call of Duty Collector sets had a set of coordinates printed below the logo on their packaging? If you entered those into Google Maps it would show you Mega’s factory or home offices in Canada.
I don’t remember exactly when, eight years ago maybe, Mattel bought out Mega Bloks/Construx. The Canada factories were closed and manufacturing relocated to China.
That bring said, I doubt that the issue is an inability to do precision molding so much as not doing so at the desired price point. As I recall, Mega Bloks aimed to be cheaper than Legos.
There are so many non-patented designs for interlocking brick systems now thanks to the 3D printing and at home mold injection scene. Some of them are superior to Lego.
Superior in what way? Lego is superior because I can take my childhood Lego pieces from 1994 and attach them snugly to my adulthood Lego pieces from 2025. Their manufacturing tolerances are unmatched. I’ve built a few offbrand sets over the years and some of those pieces from the same box don’t even fit together very well.
Source? Seriously, LEGO’s quality has significantly declined over the past few years. Sets are more expensive, less detailed, with stickers instead of prints and with far worse color consistency than other brands.
I’m just saying, this is what other brands manage to sell:
That’s Bluebrixx’s Castle Blaustein with ~25,000 pieces via 1 base set and 10 optional extension sets for ~1,200€ in total. The base set alone weighs 4 kg with “only” 5000 pieces and 200€ by the way - so unlike LEGO, half the pieces aren’t 1x1s. The final castle alone (ignoring the front court) measures 70 cm in every direction. That’s 0.35 m³ or 350 liters of bricks.
And that’s just one set (albeit with extensions). LEGO would never, ever produce anything like this with this level of detail and (comparatively) low price. Other brands, like Lumibricks, sell sets like this:
This isn’t edited btw. The set looks like this in the dark, check out some videos about it.
Don’t use Megablocks. Check out some of the actual alternatives to LEGO, such as Bluebrixx, Cada, Cobi, Lumibricks, MouldKing or Xingbao. Always check out reviews though, some of their sets are just LEGO-quality (derogatory).
For one: structural engineering for the bricks themselves that makes them even less likely to bend, break or warp, while still being compatible with other interlocking brick systems (Lego infamously has “illegal” building practices that are only suggested to not use becsuse they put undue stress on the bricks; a lot of 3rd party bricks are made for these “illegal” moves). Some are also easier to remove without seperator tools while still being strongly connected for builds.
For another: You can make shapes and colors Lego doesn’t have at all.
The best ones are from resin printed designs. FDM printed bricks can get fucked up more easily and have other issues stemming mostly from how they are printed (burs, uneven surfaces, etc).
I’ve got thousands of dollars worth of Lego spanning over 30 years and have never had pieces warp before. I’ve had a few 1x plates break over the years (completely my fault) and have also had issues with the notorious reddish brown bricks crumbling, but that’s it.
I’ve also been 3D printing going on 6 years now and even a top of the line printer will have orders of magnitude worse tolerance than an injection molded Lego brick. FDM is around 500um, resin is around 100um, and Lego is <10um and has been for 50 years. This also ignores quality issues from lack of printer maintenance, support material, and the inherent weakness of printed layers versus injection molding (not to mention the difficulty and expense printing ABS).
Getting different colors and shapes is nice but there are companies that make custom Lego bricks doing that too. The only things I ever even consider 3D printing are wall mounts for my space sets/Star Wars ships and giant minifigs.
I want everything in the world to be made here because I’m important.
USA is not the world dude. It’s one single country among many and honestly often better ones. It used to be great(ish) and that’s the dream Americans live off.
things like this are produced overseas is to maximize profit collected by the companies, and secondarily to skirt environmental laws (for even higher profits).
Denmark is a hotbed of seedy corporate types getting rid off the backs of their plebe workers, then? There they go, circumventing their corrupts government’s environmental regs and wrecking waterways.
Denmark, one of the happiest countries on earth? A Nordic country in the EU, which itself is known for having lots of regs like employment and environmental obligations?
Your assertion just sounds completely absurd, even before we compare it to “at-will” work in a Red state. The only reason to keep it in Denmark is because of people, not profits.
Can we do it at the same price as China? The few times I’ve tried to do injection molding at scales of around 3000 units, it’s been much, much cheaper to do in China.
We can do injection molding in the US, and probably for nearly the same price (as paid by the customer). The reason things like this are produced overseas is to maximize profit collected by the companies, and secondarily to skirt environmental laws (for even higher profits).
The tariffs are stupid, but the reason for so much of the current shit situation is naked greed and short-sighted profit chasing.
No the reason is that Lego is an “overseas” company. From a country with much better regulation than USA on all counts, from environmental protection to workers rights.
But apart from that Lego has a huge factory in Virginia, so there absolutely is local production in USA.
https://www.tvsyd.dk/billund/lego-bygger-endnu-en-milliardfabrik
Lego has 7 factories in:
Danmark (Billund)
Hungary
Mexico
Shanghai
China
USA
Vietnam
So you could say almost 30% of their factories are in North America, and the majority of the factories with 4 out of 7 are in the “Western” world.
Edit:
Oh and production was moved overseas, but not away from USA, but on the contrary TO USA.
Lego is manufactured in Denmark, with a super advanced fully-automated factory. They could build new factories in the US, but then it would be far away from their engineers and based in a country with a failing economy.
Heres a presentation from the Lego engineers that automate the computer systems:
https://youtu.be/SmeekXGYuFU
That is true for a lot of companies, but not for Lego.
Yes in general, but it’s not really economical for Lego to stand up a manufacturing facility in every country they sell in. If their current factory produces enough parts to meet their needs it doesn’t make any sense to open new factories just to skirt tariffs. It wouldn’t be a problem in the first place if the tariffs weren’t ridiculously high. You can’t blame Lego for not wanting to saddle their customers with tariffs on something that’s free to people living in sane countries.
I’m pretty sure that Danish shipping companies simply don’t want to deal with the new Trump bureaucracy.
The Danish postal service has stopped all shipments to the US:
https://www.postnord.dk/postnord-i-danmark/presse-og-medier/nyheder/2025/postnord-satter-midlertidigt-visse-forsendelser-af-varer-til-usa-og-puerto-rico-pa-pause/
Lego already makes shit all over the world. Look at the back of one of the big kits and there’s a wildly long list of countries of manufacture.
They probably even make some parts here in the US.
The problem is they have tons of parts, and only one or two factories making any given part (other than really common ones maybe). They would have to duplicate each individual mold to have wholly state-side supply. That’s where it becomes impractical.
They would probably have to try to figure out what they were paying for each part from a different country of manufacture, and that would also be a nightmare.
It seems like they have 3 manufacturing regions:
https://brickhobbyist.com/where-are-lego-factories-located-with-video-tour/
Also pick a brick probably ships from a Danish warehouse, so it’s all manufactured in the EU.
We “can”. But we end up with Mega Bloks, a product that adults and children alike can agree is objectively inferior to Lego.
Hmm. Were they manufactured in the US?
kagis
It sounds like Canada and then China.
https://old.reddit.com/r/megaconstrux/comments/1diz26n/why_exactly_did_mega_bloks_fell_of_so_hard/
That bring said, I doubt that the issue is an inability to do precision molding so much as not doing so at the desired price point. As I recall, Mega Bloks aimed to be cheaper than Legos.
There are so many non-patented designs for interlocking brick systems now thanks to the 3D printing and at home mold injection scene. Some of them are superior to Lego.
Superior in what way? Lego is superior because I can take my childhood Lego pieces from 1994 and attach them snugly to my adulthood Lego pieces from 2025. Their manufacturing tolerances are unmatched. I’ve built a few offbrand sets over the years and some of those pieces from the same box don’t even fit together very well.
Source? Seriously, LEGO’s quality has significantly declined over the past few years. Sets are more expensive, less detailed, with stickers instead of prints and with far worse color consistency than other brands.
I’m just saying, this is what other brands manage to sell:
That’s Bluebrixx’s Castle Blaustein with ~25,000 pieces via 1 base set and 10 optional extension sets for ~1,200€ in total. The base set alone weighs 4 kg with “only” 5000 pieces and 200€ by the way - so unlike LEGO, half the pieces aren’t 1x1s. The final castle alone (ignoring the front court) measures 70 cm in every direction. That’s 0.35 m³ or 350 liters of bricks.
And that’s just one set (albeit with extensions). LEGO would never, ever produce anything like this with this level of detail and (comparatively) low price. Other brands, like Lumibricks, sell sets like this:
This isn’t edited btw. The set looks like this in the dark, check out some videos about it.
Don’t use Megablocks. Check out some of the actual alternatives to LEGO, such as Bluebrixx, Cada, Cobi, Lumibricks, MouldKing or Xingbao. Always check out reviews though, some of their sets are just LEGO-quality (derogatory).
For one: structural engineering for the bricks themselves that makes them even less likely to bend, break or warp, while still being compatible with other interlocking brick systems (Lego infamously has “illegal” building practices that are only suggested to not use becsuse they put undue stress on the bricks; a lot of 3rd party bricks are made for these “illegal” moves). Some are also easier to remove without seperator tools while still being strongly connected for builds.
For another: You can make shapes and colors Lego doesn’t have at all.
The best ones are from resin printed designs. FDM printed bricks can get fucked up more easily and have other issues stemming mostly from how they are printed (burs, uneven surfaces, etc).
I’ve got thousands of dollars worth of Lego spanning over 30 years and have never had pieces warp before. I’ve had a few 1x plates break over the years (completely my fault) and have also had issues with the notorious reddish brown bricks crumbling, but that’s it.
I’ve also been 3D printing going on 6 years now and even a top of the line printer will have orders of magnitude worse tolerance than an injection molded Lego brick. FDM is around 500um, resin is around 100um, and Lego is <10um and has been for 50 years. This also ignores quality issues from lack of printer maintenance, support material, and the inherent weakness of printed layers versus injection molding (not to mention the difficulty and expense printing ABS).
Getting different colors and shapes is nice but there are companies that make custom Lego bricks doing that too. The only things I ever even consider 3D printing are wall mounts for my space sets/Star Wars ships and giant minifigs.
I want everything in the world to be made here because I’m important.
USA is not the world dude. It’s one single country among many and honestly often better ones. It used to be great(ish) and that’s the dream Americans live off.
Singular?
Denmark is a hotbed of seedy corporate types getting rid off the backs of their plebe workers, then? There they go, circumventing their corrupts government’s environmental regs and wrecking waterways.
Denmark, one of the happiest countries on earth? A Nordic country in the EU, which itself is known for having lots of regs like employment and environmental obligations?
Your assertion just sounds completely absurd, even before we compare it to “at-will” work in a Red state. The only reason to keep it in Denmark is because of people, not profits.
while I fully agree with most of your entire comment, that really does not apply to lego
Can we do it at the same price as China? The few times I’ve tried to do injection molding at scales of around 3000 units, it’s been much, much cheaper to do in China.