Spice company Burlap and Barrel and watch retailer Collective Horology filed a suit as well
Illinois-based educational toy company Learning Resources is once again returning to court over new tariffs imposed by US president Donald Trump, reported The Associated Press.
On Friday July 24, the toy company joined some other small businesses to challenge in the Court of International Trade the double-digit tariffs Trump imposed last week on 60 US trading partners under s.301 of the US’ Trade Act of 1974. The US administration said the tariffs were being implemented over its partners’ reported failure to ban imports produced through forced labor.
Learning Resources had been part of the tariff suit that went to the US Supreme Court last year and came away victorious. Its current suit is one of two filed against the Trump administration over the new tariffs – the other is being filed by New York spice company Burlap and Barrel and California watch retailer Collective Horology.
The suits claim that the US government’s cases against specific economies were inadequately established; moreover, the administration did not clarify how the new tariffs would prohibit the practices they were supposedly addressing. Libertarian advocacy group Liberty Justice Center is acting for Burlap and Barrel and Collective Horology.
Liberty Justice Center CEO and chairman Sara Albrecht said in a statement published by AP News that while forced labor was “morally indefensible,” it did not mean the government could bypass the law.
“The administration allowed one global tariff to expire and immediately replaced it with another under a different statute. Changing the statute doesn’t change the law,” Albrecht said in the statement.
Trump had imposed short-term 10 percent global tariffs under s.122 that expired on Friday. Patrick Childress, a partner at global law firm Holland & Knight and an ex-US trade official, said in a statement published by AP News that the new tariffs under s.301 “will be with us for the long haul.”
He explained that compliance with the US’ desired policies would not be enough to lift the tariffs on their own – the trading partners would have to prove that the policies were being enforced to the government’s liking.
“This suggests that no short-term path for country-wide relief from the new Section 301 tariffs will be available,” Childress said in a statement published by AP News.
According to AP News, the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last week, Trump activated s.338 of the US Tariff Act of 1930 to impose a 50 percent tariff on Canadian goods on the grounds of “unequal imposition on or discrimination against the commerce of the United States.” This tariff is set to take effect on August 19.
