While corporate America stayed silent, a small wine importer risked his business to challenge Trump’s tariffs
By Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN
(CNN) — 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. But Schwartz’s win came at a personal cost.
“I am under constant attack through text, email and I can’t stop it,” he said. “It’s a little ugly. I guess it could be uglier. We keep our doors locked at the office.”
‘We can’t just raise our prices’
Schwartz’s business imports wine and spirits from 16 countries. He is no stranger to the nation’s complex tariff code and how quickly rates can change, especially when Trump is in office. For instance, at one point last year, Trump threatened a 50% tariff on products from the European Union.
The economic environment now, especially in my industry, certainly is very unhealthy,” he said. “We had to go through every item in our book over since ‘Liberation Day,’ I think, at least four times.” (Trump coined April 2, 2025, the day he unveiled his now-overturned tariffs, as “Liberation Day.”)
“We can’t just raise our prices, and we just can’t pay it, unlike big companies that can just write a check,” he added. Since April, he estimates he’s had to pay at least six figures in tariffs.
The victory for Schwartz could mean he and other importers may be due hefty refunds totaling at least $134 billion, according to US Customs and Border Protection tariff revenue data as of December 14. But it remains to be seen exactly how that would work.
Meanwhile, Friday’s verdict won’t stop Trump from pushing other kinds of tariffs. Already, the president signed a 10% global tariff on Friday under a separate trade law and hinted at several other remedies aimed at restricting imports.
Schwartz said he’s worried about the other tariffs Trump could impose, but at least they would be much more restricted in scope and have time limits.
Fighting with the world’s most powerful person
The risk of going up against the world’s most powerful man wasn’t lost on Schwartz.
“We try to tamp down our fear but still recognize the challenges of what’s out there,” Schwartz said.
Even big corporations have gotten backlash for pointing out the costs of Trump’s tariffs. Amazon drew the administration’s ire following reports that the e-commerce giant planned to display how tariffs were impacting prices.
But after speaking with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Trump said the company wouldn’t move forward with that. (A company spokesperson at the time, however, told CNN the move “was never a consideration for the main Amazon.”)
For Schwartz, positive support from other businesses all over the country and across the political spectrum has kept him going through the criticism.
Similarly, Rick Woldenberg, CEO of Learning Resources, has taken a lot of pride in challenging the Trump administration’s tariffs.
“The math was simple: I could not afford the tax that they wanted to hit me with,” Woldenberg told CNN. Unlike Schwartz, however, he’s had to cover his own legal fees, which totaled “seven figures.”
“I wanted my name in this lawsuit. I didn’t do anything wrong,” Woldenberg said.
Piggybacking on small businesses
Alan Morrison, who was the lead attorney in a case that challenged the blanket steel tariffs Trump put in place during his first term, understands why so many businesses have shied away from this kind of face-off.
“He threatens individual companies. He grants exceptions. All of this makes people feel very vulnerable,” Morrison said.
With the lawsuit Morrison led, large corporations got the benefit of “sitting back and waiting to see what happens” in the current tariff litigation.
In this case though, thousands of corporations, including Costco, have preemptively sued the US government in an effort to secure their stake in a refund without having to put their reputation on the line as Schwartz and Woldenberg have.
Schwartz doesn’t mind that corporate America can benefit from the risk he took: “So it takes a little match to start the fire. Okay, I’ll take that. I’m not going to feel badly about that. I’m going to feel proud about that.”
To celebrate the victory, Schwartz said he’ll be opening up an old bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
The-CNN-Wire
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