{"id":269562,"date":"2025-11-03T21:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T21:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/269562\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T21:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T21:17:08","slug":"meet-the-businesses-taking-on-trumps-tariffs-at-the-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/269562\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the businesses taking on Trump’s tariffs at the Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Small businesses are leading the charge against President Trump’s sweeping tariffs. The Supreme Court will hear their challenge on Nov. 5.<\/p>\n

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Trump cuts some Chinese tariffs after summit with Xi<\/p>\n

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WASHINGTON \u2212 The sine wave<\/a> on David Levi\u2019s T-shirt illustrates the physics behind the STEM kits he creates to teach kids how to build electronic musical instruments from scratch.<\/p>\n

But the oscillating line could also represent President Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs <\/a>that have bounced up and down, creating higher costs and uncertainty for small businessmen like Levi.<\/p>\n

Levi, an electrical engineer who founded MicroKits <\/a>in 2020, has had to raise prices, slow production and pause plans to launch a new product \u2013 Banan-a-Synth<\/a> \u2013 that lets kids turn a bunch of bananas into a kind of keyboard.<\/p>\n

And if the tariffs that Trump has imposed on nearly every imported good \u2013 including many of the electronic components Levi uses to build his kits in Charlottesville, Virginia, \u2212 are going to remain high for the foreseeable future, Levi said he might have to move production out of the country.<\/p>\n

That could be needed both to allow Levi to sell his kits at a competitive price and to gain more predictability about costs. Trump is setting rates by bypassing laws that require a more detailed process for imposing tariffs in limited circumstances.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t really plan if the rates might change again next month,\u201d he told USA TODAY.<\/p>\n

More: Are Trump’s tariffs too big to fail at the Supreme Court?<\/a><\/p>\n

Businesses are not embracing Trump’s tariffs<\/p>\n

American businesses moving overseas is the opposite outcome Trump promised when he imposed tariffs on nearly every product imported into the United States.<\/p>\n

Trump said persistent trade deficits have become an emergency because they\u2019ve hollowed out the nation\u2019s manufacturing base. He\u2019s also used tariffs as a way to get China, Mexico and Canada to do more to stop illegal drugs from coming into the United States.<\/p>\n

But businesses are not embracing his strategy.<\/p>\n

Levi is among the small business owners challenging Trump\u2019s tariffs, an issue the Supreme Court<\/a> will take up <\/a>on Nov. 5.<\/p>\n

Other businesses arguing that Trump overstepped his authority include a Vermont company that makes women\u2019s cycling gear, two Illinois-based businesses that sell educational toys and a wine importer based in New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese tariffs threatened the very existence of small businesses like mine, making it difficult to survive, let alone grow,\u201d Victor Owen Schwartz, who founded his wine and spirits import business nearly 40 years ago with his mother, said of his decision to take on the president. \u201cI was shocked that those with much more power and money did not step up.\u201d<\/p>\n

More: Canada’s PM Carney says he apologized to Trump over anti-tariff ad<\/a><\/p>\n

U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposes Trump’s tariffs<\/p>\n

While Fortune 500 companies did not file suit as Schwartz did, major business organizations have spoken out against the tariffs.<\/p>\n

In a filing<\/a> supporting the challenges, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Consumer Technology Association told the Supreme Court<\/a> the question of whether the tariffs are legal is of \u201cparamount importance to the business community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s tariffs injected greater uncertainty into the trade economy than the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and, unless stopped by the court, would let presidents claim \u201cunprecedented authority to upend the domestic economy through taxation,\u201d the groups wrote.<\/p>\n

More: Will the Supreme Court treat Trump’s tariffs like Biden’s policies?<\/a><\/p>\n

A ‘blessing for the American factory worker’<\/p>\n

Drew Greenblatt, CEO of Marlin Steel Wire Products, is a rare businessman championing the tariffs.<\/p>\n

Greenblatt said the import fees evened the playing field for companies like his, which rely on U.S.-made steel to make metal baskets and other wire products in Baltimore, Michigan and Indiana factories.<\/p>\n

Greenblatt competes against companies that get their steel from China, which subsidizes its steel industry.<\/p>\n

But after tariffs were imposed on Canada, Marlin Steel took a $1.3 million job away from a Canadian company that uses Chinese steel. That order is funding six shifts around the clock, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTariffs are a leveling tactic because there are a lot of people out there not playing fair,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a blessing for the American factory worker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greenblatt said he\u2019s not na\u00efve enough to think all the manufacturing jobs that migrated overseas will come back because of the tariffs. But if just 10% or 20% do, he said, \u201cour factories will double or triple in size.\u201d<\/p>\n

Economists argue tariffs hurt more than they help<\/p>\n

Michael Strain, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank that promotes the free enterprise system, said there\u2019s no question that the tariffs help some businesses.<\/p>\n

But on balance, he said, American manufacturers are worse off.<\/p>\n

Domestic manufacturers import a lot of materials and equipment they need to make their finished product, he said. And the higher cost from those \u201cintermediate goods\u201d is greater than the benefits of import protections.<\/p>\n

That was proven, Strain said, during the trade war of Trump\u2019s first administration. Economists for the Federal Reserve estimated that the United States lost five times more manufacturing jobs<\/a> than it gained.<\/p>\n

A group of economists \u2013 including Strain and former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke \u2013 told the Supreme Court that the decline in domestic manufacturing jobs has nothing to do with the trade deficit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, the United States does not manufacture less today than it did in the past,\u201d the economists said in a filing<\/a> supporting the businesses challenging the tariffs. \u201cInstead, the same manufacturing now requires fewer people and is less expensive relative to other goods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Small businesses could be hurt the most<\/p>\n

More than 700 small businesses signed onto a separate brief<\/a> telling the court their decision \u201cwill determine whether many small and micro businesses across the United States can survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cassie Abel, the CEO of Wild Rye, an Idaho company that produces outdoor apparel for women that is made in China, said she leveraged her house to help finance her business.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo every tariff increase means the risk of losing my home,\u201d she said. \u201cMy family\u2019s housing is at stake in addition to everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jess Nepstad, the chief adventure officer with a Montana-based company that designs and sells coffee storage and brewing equipment, said he hadn\u2019t realized how nerve-wracking the tariffs are until the day in May when a lower court ruled <\/a>that Trump lacked the power to impose sweeping tariffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember sitting out on my porch, eight o\u2019clock at night, hearing that ruling and I actually wept,\u201d he said. \u201cI had no idea I was carrying that much stress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what it\u2019s like taking on the president of the United States from his small workshop in Charlottesville, Levi \u2013 the founder of MicroKits \u2013 said it \u201ckind of just feels like being a citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a citizen, you can go to the courts and be like, ‘I\u2019m not sure if the government can do this. Let\u2019s figure this out,\u2019 \u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Whatever the justices decide, Levi hopes they will rule quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main thing is I just want enough certainty,\u201d he said, \u201cto be able to move my business forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Small businesses are leading the charge against President Trump’s sweeping tariffs. The Supreme Court will hear their challenge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,25246,28,122,3101,144485,144483,2858,14804,12,17528,144486,15606,13962,26893,4624,36677,38037,14477,9580,34645,3,573,13470,34647,111,36029,12191,10196,22620,144484,6013,759,1596,3479,13692,21206,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-269562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-branch","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-business-news","12":"tag-businesses","13":"tag-carney","14":"tag-components","15":"tag-court","16":"tag-donald","17":"tag-donald-trump","18":"tag-electronic","19":"tag-electronic-components","20":"tag-executive","21":"tag-executive-branch","22":"tag-export","23":"tag-import","24":"tag-import-tariffs","25":"tag-import-u0026-export","26":"tag-mark","27":"tag-mark-carney","28":"tag-negative","29":"tag-news","30":"tag-of","31":"tag-overall","32":"tag-overall-negative","33":"tag-politics","34":"tag-small","35":"tag-small-business","36":"tag-small-businesses","37":"tag-states","38":"tag-supreme","39":"tag-supreme-court-of-the-united-states","40":"tag-tariffs","41":"tag-the","42":"tag-trump","43":"tag-u0026","44":"tag-united","45":"tag-united-states","46":"tag-united-states-of-america","47":"tag-unitedstates","48":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","49":"tag-us","50":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}