My name is Rick Woldenberg. I run a family-owned toy company. I sued President Trump over tariffs. And I won at the Supreme Court. Here’s why.

Our company, Learning Resources, was founded by my mother, and traces back to a company purchased by my grandfather in 1916. We have always been located in northern Illinois. We have a small presence in California, through a company in LA called Educational Insights, founded in 1962, which we bought in 2006. 

All of my children work for Learning Resources. We are a mission-driven business. We create products for schools and families to help their kids get a good start in life. 

We have 500 employees in the United States. Much of our manufacturing takes place in China. 

We have tried for a decade, without success, to find a way to make our toys in the United States. Few of the other 2,000 companies in my industry have found a way to make highly finished toys in this country, either.

We aren’t cynical people; we have strong values. But we can only sell our products at prices that consumers will pay.

You cannot earn a livable wage in this country through the hand assembly of toys. And so this is just not the right place to make them. 

I anticipated Trump’s tariffs — somewhat. I moved about 16% of our production out of China, and to Vietnam and India instead. I did not anticipate the scale of the tariffs — up to 145%, at one point — or that the president would light all our supply chains on fire. 

Trump’s actions were unprecedented. Moreover, the rules seemed arbitrary, changing every 24 to 48 hours. 

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After the Supreme Court decision, the president announced 10% tariffs on Friday, and raised them to 15% on Saturday. This has been going on for a full year. 

We paid over $10 million in “emergency” tariffs in 2025 alone. We also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars reorganizing of supply chains. And there were also the costs of litigation.

We decided not to raise our prices in 2026. So we absorbed those costs. We substantially cut our marketing budget. We hired many fewer people, and the LA office was prevented from hiring, for a while. 

Now that the tariffs have been ruled unlawful, as imposed, I believe we are entitled to our money back, with interest. The government has admitted it owes us that money, in various filings.

It’s easy for people to understand why many other companies backed away from challenging the president. We sued somebody who prints their own money, and that’s not usually advisable. 

We sued somebody who has thousands of lawyers working for them — and they don’t pay them: We, the taxpayers, do.

If power and elite status mattered, we were destined to lose.

But that’s not how the American system works. Our system works through rule of law. Under the law, we are equal. We felt we were right on the law. 

In addition, the math was pretty bad if we didn’t do anything. We’d be paying many tens of millions of dollars in tariffs annually. We were paying about 2% in duties before the Trump tariffs; afterwards, we were paying up to 20% of costs in tariffs. That’s not sustainable. 

Moreover, had we not sued, the work of our country’s Founders would have been undone. James Madison, who crafted the separation of powers in the Constitution, did not intend the president to become a taxing body. 

The president tried to impose taxes on a whim. That was not what Madison had in mind. And whether it’s Trump doing it, or whoever comes after Trump, it’s not the American system. It’s not the America we know.

From the beginning, I refused to consider that we wouldn’t win. But this case really wasn’t against Trump. We didn’t win over a person. We won over a principle: the application of the letter of the law.

I think it was overdue that Americans could see, in tangible terms, that the rule of law remains supreme — that decisions will be made not on political lines, but on an impartial assessment of facts and circumstances, in a clear, clean reading of the law.

Our system of government was validated, and vindicated, and verified. We needed to see that there are three branches of government. We needed to see that there is a separation of powers. We needed to see that Congress alone has responsibility for taxation.

The new 15% tariff is only a slight reduction from what we’re paying currently. It expires after 150 days. It’s a regressive tax. Working Americans will pay the brunt of this tax. In my view, the president should drop it.

But regardless, I feel proud, as our nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, to be part of reaffirming James Madison’s vision. Our Constitution is strong. The American system works.

Rick Woldenberg is CEO of a family-owned toy company, and the plaintiff in Learning Resources v. Trump.