The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday struck down President Donald Trump’s tariff policy, ruling in cases brought by a variety of businesses, including a pair of Chicago-based educational toy companies, that the president exceeded his powers under a federal statute.
In a 6–3 decision issued Feb. 20, the court held that Trump lacked congressional authorization to impose sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the 1977 law his administration cited to justify the policy.
Although the education companies’ specific claims were dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, their lawsuit helped produce the broader outcome they sought: invalidating the tariff policy. One company’s name now rests on top of the decision in Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump.
Learning Resources and a related company, hand2mind Inc., based in Vernon Hills, Ill., sell hands-on learning toys focused on STEM learning, computer coding, social-emotional learning, reading, and mathematics.
“The president asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it.”
But IEEPA “contains no reference to tariffs or duties,” Roberts said. “We hold that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs.”
Roberts’ opinion was joined in full or in different parts by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil M. Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., and Brett M. Kavanaugh dissented.
“The tariffs have generated vigorous policy debates,” Kavanaugh wrote for those three in the principal dissent. “The sole legal question here is whether, under IEEPA, tariffs are a means to ‘regulate … importation.’ Statutory text, history, and precedent demonstrate that the answer is clearly yes: Like quotas and embargoes, tariffs are a traditional and common tool to regulate importation.”
A technical setback for toy companies
Rick Woldenberg, the CEO of Learning Resources and hand2mind, told Education Week last fall that the president’s tariffs “raised the tax rate on our company to the point it was asphyxiating.”
A federal district court in Washington agreed with their arguments and issued an injunction blocking the tariffs only as applied to Learning Resources and hand2mind. Other courts, including one federal appeals court, also ruled against the tariffs in a separate lawsuit by 12 states and a group of other small and medium-sized businesses that includes a wine importer, a plumbing-supply company, a women’s cycling-wear brand, and a specialty sportfishing-gear company.
The Supreme Court, in its ruling Friday, decided the issue but sent the educational companies’ case back to the federal district court to be dismissed for “lack of jurisdiction.” The Trump administration had argued that their case should have been filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade, where the companion case, also decided by the Supreme Court, had been filed.
But Learning Resources and hand2mind achieved their goal of eliminating Trump’s tariffs.
“The court adopted the arguments that we made in our original complaint,” Woldenberg said in an interview. “I feel very vindicated by that.”
The fact that the court technically ordered his companies’ challenge dismissed doesn’t lessen the victory of the policies being struck down, he said.
Woldenberg said he was especially proud of his companies’ role in the education industry, and that “our industry did this and played a role in this history.”
Kavanaugh, in his dissent, said the court’s decision may not prevent Trump from imposing similar tariffs based on other congressional authorities, something his administration said he was likely to do.
Trump, speaking from the White House press briefing room Friday afternoon, called the decision “deeply disappointing” and said, “I’m ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country.”
“They’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution,” Trump said, apparently referring to all those in the majority.
Referring to the two of his three appointees who were in the majority—Gorsuch and Barrett, the president said the decision “was an embarrassment to their families, if you want to know the truth.” (He heaped praise on his other appointee, Kavanaugh, as well as on the other dissenters.)
“We have numerous other ways” to impose tariffs, Trump said, adding that some of those other means would be instigated right away.
This story will be updated.
