Illinois-based toycos Learning Resources and hand2mind have filed a lawsuit that challenges US President Donald Trump and his government’s authority to impose tariffs. 

The family-owned companies filed their complaint yesterday in the District Court of Columbia, claiming that the President’s ongoing 145% reciprocal tariffs against China are an Executive Branch power grab. And as a result of these actions, the plaintiffs’ ability to sell educational toys to retailers and schools at an affordable cost has been irreparably harmed. 

The suit’s 37-page document lists several defendants responsible for directing and implementing the tariffs, including President Trump himself, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. In a nutshell, it challenges that the US government has overstepped Congress in this process, stating that neither the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) nor the Constitution grants the President the near-limitless power or authority to authorize tariffs of this scale.

The IEEPA was enacted in 1977 when both the US House of Representatives and Senate reported that past presidents had abused their power to regulate economic transactions during a national emergency. It’s designed to keep the power to impose tariffs and sanctions locked to Congress, unless the president found there was an extraordinary or unusual threat to national security, foreign policy or the US economy. 

Learning Resources and hand2mind say that Trump is the first American president to impose tariffs using the IEEPA; past presidents have only used it to impose sanctions that target threats outside the country. But in this situation, they allege it will be American businesses and consumers, rather than foreign governments, that pay the US$600 billion that Trump’s tariffs are expected to generate annually.