Learning Resources v. Trump

Learning Resources v. Trump, and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc. is a consolidated case in the United States Supreme Court, in which the Court will determine the constitutionality of presidential imposition of tariffs, particularly import taxes levied in the second presidency of Donald Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

Learning Resources v. Trump Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc.
Supreme Court of the United States
Full case name	Learning Resources, Inc., et al. v. Donald J. Trump, et al. Donald J. Trump, et al., v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc.
Docket nos.	24-1287 25-250
Questions presented
1. Whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), Pub. L. No. 95-223, Tit. II, 91 Stat. 1626, authorizes the tariffs imposed by President Trump pursuant to the national emergencies declared or continued in Proclamation 10,886 and Executive Orders 14,157, 14,193, 14,194, 14,195, and 14,257, as amended. 2. If IEEPA authorizes the tariffs, whether the statute unconstitutionally delegates legislative authority to the President.

Donald Trump had announced tariffs aimed at numerous countries under his claims of authority granted by IEEPA in April 2025 as part of his Liberation Day tariffs, enacted through his executive orders. Multiple lawsuits from affected companies and states were filed shortly after this announcement, including both Learning Resources and V.O.S. Selections, by groups of small businesses and individual states challenging the president's authority to issue tariffs under IEEPA. Within Learning Resources, the District Court for the District of Columbia ruled the tariffs were unconstitutional in May 2025. Though Trump appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the plaintiffs sought but failed to get expedited relief from the Supreme Court in early June. Under Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, the United States Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled in May 2025 that the president does not have the authority to use the IEEPA to set tariffs in this way, and permanently enjoined the government from enforcing them. The CIT's ruling was upheld on appeal by both a three-judge panel and a en banc panel of the Federal Circuit Appeals Court by August 2025. In both cases, the lower courts stayed their injunctions to allow Trump to appeal the rulings to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court granted both petitions in September, and scheduled oral arguments for November 5, 2025.

Background

Trump displaying the chart detailing tariffs levied against the United States and retaliatory tariffs ("Liberation Day tariffs") that he would issue in turn

See also: Tariffs in the second Trump administration

On April 2, 2025, president Donald Trump announced "Liberation Day" tariffs on many countries and products as part of Executive Order 14257, arguing that he had the power to set these tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).^[1] Trump argued that there were numerous trade deficits that were unfair to the United States and threaten national security, and declared an economic emergency to justify the use of the IEEPA to correct them. Under the new tariff plan, nearly all incoming goods were set to a 10% tariff, with about sixty additional countries set at higher tariff rates. Further, Trump stated his intent to use "reciprocal tariffs" and raise the rates on any country which implemented their own tariffs on U.S. goods in response to the new tariff plan.^[2][3] Trump had pushed for tariffs alongside his "Big Beautiful Bill" passed by Congress in July 2025 which significantly cut government revenue from taxes but with more government spending, with the tariffs intended to make up the difference.^[4] The tariffs did not come into effect until July 2025, during which the Trump administration secured trade agreements with some countries including Japan and the European Union, reducing the tariff rate applied in exchange for either investments into the U.S. or importing more U.S. goods.^[5]

The tariff plan was met with harsh criticism from multiple sectors. World leaders from multiple countries urged Trump to back off the tariff plan, with the European Union's president Ursula von der Leyen saying they would be a "major blow to the world economy".^[6] Economic experts also were critical of the tariff plan with concerns on the flawed calculations used to justify the tariff rates.^[7] Business lobbying groups including the United States Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable sought relief from the Trump administration to lessen the impact of the tariffs on businesses.^[8]

Lower court history

Multiple lawsuits were filed in wake of Trump's Liberation Day tariff announcement, but the V.O.S. Selections was one of the first filed and had progressed the farthest;^[8] James Fanelli of The Wall Street Journal said "Other challenges have been filed in the court and in federal district courts around the country, but the V.O.S. case is front and center so far."^[9] In addition to Learning Resources and V.O.S. Selections, there were other similar lawsuits. In April 2025, twelve states led by Oregon filed a similar suit within the Court of International Trade, arguing that Trump did not have the authority to use the IEEPA to set tariffs.^[10] The states' case was consolidated with that from the Liberty Justice Center.^[9]

These cases do not challenge another route for the president to set tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which allows the president to establish tariffs in the interest of national security. Trump has used this during his second administration to set tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, among other goods.^[11]

Learning Resources v. Trump

On April 22, 2025, Learning Resources and hand2mind, two family-owned educational toy manufacturers, sued Trump in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.^[12] In an interview with CBS News, Learning Resources' chief executive, Rick Woldenberg, argued that Trump's tariffs would negatively affect his business and the U.S. economy,^[13] citing that their costs to tariffs had risen by a 44-fold increase.^[12]

A coalition of experts filed an amici curiae brief in support of the plaintiff for Learning Resources, in addition to a similar one for V.O.S. Selections, stating "The powers to tax, to regulate commerce, and to shape the nation's economic course must remain with Congress. They cannot drift silently into the hands of the President through inertia, inattention, or creative readings of statutes never meant to grant such authority. That conviction is not partisan. It is constitutional. And it strikes at the heart of this case."^[14][15] The brief, co-authored by Michael W. McConnell and Joshua Claybourn, brought together "big-name constitutional law scholars across the political spectrum" according to Reason, and included legal scholars Steven Calabresi, Harold Koh, Richard Epstein, Michael W. McConnell, and Gerard Magliocca, and former government officials Michael Mukasey, George Allen, and Chuck Hagel.^[14] The filing, dubbed the McConnell/Claybourn brief,^[16] was cited by Vox as one of the plaintiffs' two significant advantages, noting that co-signer John Danforth is a mentor to Justice Clarence Thomas and gave Thomas his first job out of law school.^[17] According to Adam Liptak of The New York Times, the amici brief was considered instrumental in the case's proceedings.^[18] McConnell would later transition to serve as counsel to the plaintiffs in V.O.S. Selections.

Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled on May 29, 2025, that Trump's tariffs were unlawful, but limited his order to the plaintiffs and delayed it until an appeal could be heard.^[19] Trump appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by June 3, leading judge Contreras to extend the stay on his order while the case was litigated there.^[12]

While the case progressed in the appeals court, Learning Resources filed for a motion to expedite directly to the Supreme Court, bypassing the appeals court, along with a writ of certiorari on June 18, 2025.^[20] The Supreme Court rejected the expedited request two days later without comment.^[21] In July, solicitor general D. John Sauer argued that the justices "should not leapfrog" the proceedings in the appeals court.^[22]

V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump

Court of International Trade

In V.O.S. Selections, the plaintiffs, consisting of five small businesses which were facing potential bankruptcy due to the tariffs, filed suit against the government on April 14, 2025, in the United States Court of International Trade, a judicial venue for civil actions related to the government's trade regulations. The businesses were represented by the Liberty Justice Center and Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University.^[23][24][25] The plaintiffs argued that the administration had improperly used the IEEPA to impose tariffs that were not authorized by that law.^[26] Somin said that while the IEEPA had previously been used by other presidents in sanctions against other countries or to freeze assets of foreign terrorists, no previous president used the law to simply set tariff rate, and that Trump's imposition of the tariffs was "an enormous abuse of power, and it still needs to be stopped".^[26][27] Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel at Liberty Justice Center said:^[28]

Our system is not set up so that one person in the system can have the power to impose taxes across the world economy. That’s not how our constitutional republic works...

The Court denied a motion for a temporary restraining order on April 25, 2025, but ordered the Trump administration to respond to the plaintiffs' motions for a preliminary injunction and summary judgment. The Court set a briefing schedule and hearing to rule on plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin the implementation of the Liberation Day tariffs.^[9]

The three judge panel, consisting of judges Timothy Reif (a Trump appointment), Gary Katzmann (an Obama appointment), and Jane Restani (a Reagan appointee), heard the case on May 13, 2025.^[29][30][31] Plaintiffs were represented by Jeffrey M. Schwab of the Liberty Justice Center, while Eric J. Hamilton of the U.S. Department of Justice defended the government's position.^[32][33]

The Trump administration argued that federal courts upheld use of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, to which the IEEPA was an amendment, by the Nixon administration in response to the economic impact from the ending of the Bretton Woods system in August 1971.^[34]

The three-judge panel granted plaintiffs summary judgment on May 28, 2025, permanently enjoining the government from enforcing the tariffs. The court ruled that the IEEPA does not delegate power from Congress to the president to create tariffs in this way.^[35] The panel's opinion explained its ruling that while the president may at times of emergency be given limited powers within the statute to set tariffs, this does not grant the office the "unlimited tariff authority" that Trump had claimed the IEEPA granted, nor could the Congress delegate such unlimited power under the Constitution.^[36]

The opinion stated that Congress could only delegate tariff powers to the president if that delegation includes "an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to fix such [tariff] rates is directed to conform"; if the IEEPA was intended to give the president broad tariff powers, then the court would have found the IEEPA unconstitutional as it lacked any specific conditions and limitations for that delegation.^[36]

A second factor stated by the opinion is that the president's power to set tariffs to address trade deficits is circumscribed under the Trade Act of 1974, but only at a maximum rate of 15% and for a maximum of 150 days.^[36] A third point raised by the opinion countered the rationale given by Trump to fight the "unusual and extraordinary threat" of illegal drug trade into the U.S., and held that none of the tariffs issued by Trump did anything to stop drugs from entering the U.S, and rejected Trump's argument that other nations would be incentivized to stop drug trade to the U.S. to remove the tariffs.^[36]

Federal Circuit Appeals Court

The Trump administration appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and requested a stay of the permanent injunction.^[37] The circuit court granted the government's motion to stay, while also ordering an expedited en banc hearing on the substantive issues in the case on July 31, 2025, with additional briefings on the merits.^[38]

At the hearing on July 31, journalists observed that some of the judges seemed skeptical of the arguments advanced by the administration's lawyers.^[39][40] D. John Sauer, the Solicitor General, filed an additional submission with the court after the hearing, stating that if the tariffs were overturned, the result would be an economic depression on par with the 1929 depression, jeopardizing social programs such as Social Security and Medicare and requiring the federal government to repay trillions of dollars to foreign countries.^[41][42]

On August 29, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the summary judgment of the Court of International Trade in a per curiam opinion ruling that Trump had exceeded his authority under the IEEPA, that establishing tariffs was a power controlled only by Congress, and that the president's approach raised issues under the Supreme Court's major questions doctrine.^[43] In its reasons, the per curiam opinion stated that: "...the President has departed from the established tariff schedules and imposed varying tariffs of unlimited duration on imports of nearly all goods from nearly every country with which the United States conducts trade."^[44]

While a per curiam decision, four out of the eleven judges on the court joined in dissent, with judge Richard G. Taranto writing the dissenting opinion joined by chief judge Kimberly Moore and judges Sharon Prost and Raymond Chen. Taranto said "IEEPA embodies an eyes-open congressional grant of broad emergency authority in this foreign-affairs realm, which unsurprisingly extends beyond authorities available under non-emergency laws, and Congress confirmed the understood breadth by tying IEEPA’s authority to particularly demanding procedural requirements for keeping Congress informed."^[43][45]

The ruling invalidated the executive orders establishing the tariffs against Canada and Mexico as well as the Liberation Day tariffs, but did not involve tariffs on steel, copper, and aluminum that were placed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The case was remanded to the Court of International Trade to determine remedies.^[45] The appeals court imposed a stay of execution through October 14 to allow the administration to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.^[46][34] Trump argued on social media that the ruling, if allowed to stand, "would literally destroy the United States of America" and vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court to overrule.^[3]

U.S. Supreme Court

Within a week of the en banc Federal Circuit decision from V.O.S. Selections, the administration formally requested an expedited ruling from the Supreme Court.^[47][48]

The court accepted the case on September 9, 2025, consolidating it with the pending petition from Learning Resources. The case was later scheduled to be heard November 5, 2025.^[49][50]

The impact of the ruling, if upheld by the Supreme Court, is unclear, as it would threaten the basis of the trade deals made with other countries, and there could be extensive litigation from companies seeking recovery of the tariffs they had paid the government since the onset of the tariffs.^[5]