Short read: While corporate America stayed silent, a small wine importer risked his business to challenge Trump’s tariffs

In vibrant democracies, power – in both political and business life – is contested by rival constituencies every single day. It gives the rest of the world plenty of newsflow to cheer and jeer about but however ugly that might look, the financial returns that the world’s mightiest democracies produce can’t be matched by other countries run by strongmen and dictators. Now that the US Supreme Courts have deemed Trump’s tariffs to be illegal it is worth noting that the challenge to Trump – a man who has made heads of state across the world bow in front of America’s power and his bullying – came from a small wine producer. CNN reports:

“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.””

When bullies stalk the world, it is often the little guy who sticks his head up and says that the emperor has no clothes.

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