Sweeping emergency tariffs are illegal

When President Donald Trump announced plans to raise the nation’s effective tariff rate to levels not seen since 1930 last year, most CEOs were silent. They’d seen how opposing the president’s ambitions – let alone his signature economic policy – could prove even more costly than the policies he enacted.

With billions in annual revenue at stake, the leaders of multinational corporations generally stood still. But Victor Schwartz, the owner of small New York-based wine importer VOS Selections, took a giant step up.

Schwartz became the face of the fight to overturn Trump’s most sweeping tariffs — and he won, in a case that was decided by the Supreme Court on Friday.

He was initially hesitant to take on such a prominent role, he told CNN in an interview after the verdict on Friday.

“It was one thing to join the case, but then to be the lead plaintiff really gave me pause,” Schwartz said.

He stepped into that role after a family member put him in touch with the Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian-leaning nonprofit public-interest law firm. The Liberty Justice Center was preparing to challenge the unprecedented use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to unilaterally impose the tariffs — and after speaking with dozens of other small businesses, the group selected Schwartz as the lead plaintiff. With corporate America largely on the sidelines, Schwartz said he felt like the “last line of defense” in putting a stop to the tariffs he viewed as a grave violation of executive powers and a threat to his family-run business.

So on April 14, 2025, the Liberty Justice Center filed the case titled VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump. It was eventually consolidated with similar cases filed by 12 states and Learning Resources, an educational supply company.

He was victorious in the end, with the Supreme Court ruling that Trump’s sweeping emergency tariffs are illegal.