Toy retailer Learning Resources is waging legal war against President Donald Trump’s tariffs once more. The company was picked by the Court of International Trade as the sample shipper’s case to go after the tariffs implemented under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which went into force on July 24. (A group of 25 U.S. states filed a lawsuit in early August.) The U.S. administration argues it can levy tariffs of 10% or 12.5%, depending on the country, based on each country’s alleged failure to enforce bans on goods made with forced labor.
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You will remember that Learning Resources was one of the main litigants that successfully challenged the tariffs introduced under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) all the way to the Supreme Court, which struck the levies down as illegal in February 2026. Now CEO Rick Woldenberg is girding his loins for another battle. “It’s about an unlawful tax,” he says. “It’s not political.”
Critics of this latest round of Trump tariffs point to the absurdity of levying what are essentially fines against countries with no record of tolerating forced labor in their supply chains, such as Norway. All the same, Trump has been making it clear for decades that tariffs are his preferred way of establishing and maintaining economic dominance for the U.S. Now, more than 18 months after he began vigorously pursuing this tactic as president, shippers such as Learning Resources have concluded that the resulting uncertainty over landed costs, availability and retail prices necessitate some fancy dancing, not least with a war in the Persian Gulf going on.
“We’ve moved around and diversified our supply chain, mainly to protect ourselves against American politicians,” says Woldenberg. “They’re the problem; not the foreign politicians.”
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Law firm Barnes Richardson explained in an August 20 post on its website that there were three separate cases filed by shippers in opposition to the Section 301 forced labor tariffs, but the three-judge CIT panel assigned to the litigation determined that only one sample case should move forward at this point. The CIT explained that the Learning Resources case protects the arguments for all the litigants, while avoiding procedural questions that would prevent a quick decision for the parties. The court also explained that all litigants would be included in the case moving forward via a “steering committee.”
A summary judgment hearing for the case is scheduled for September 30, 2026, in New York.
The good news for U.S. businesses, said the law firm, is that the CIT has created a streamlined process that should allow the parties to address the merits of the Section 301 Forced Labor duties very quickly (for a court).
Don’t hold your breath, though. “Regardless of who prevails at the CIT, there will assuredly be an appeal, and probably an appeal from the appeal,” the law firm warned. Appeals to judgements by the CIT are handled by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and, in rare cases, get referred to the U.S. Supreme Court. “Nevertheless, there is one case to watch and no difficult procedural issues to slow progress, which may lead to certainty months faster than would otherwise have been true,” said Barnes Richardson.
