When the Liberty Justice Center was preparing its initial legal challenge to the Trump administration’s punishing tariff sanctions, winning in the court of public opinion was a necessary prelude to a landmark Supreme Court victory.
For Jeffrey Schwab, the center’s director of litigation, making the case for his clients–a wine importer, fishing gear retailer, industrial pipe maker, electronics kit designer, cycling apparel company and toy designer–required making the stories of tariff-related financial stress and loss equally relatable at the water-cooler and before a judge.
“Sometimes, we deal with very technical legal details that are a little boring, and so you need to explain how these things affect individuals,” Schwab told the National Press Foundation’s Local Business Reporting Fellowship conference. “And then you hear about the harm that the tariffs are imposing on those businesses, those dreams, and it’s devastating. So, I think anybody who is listening to those stories is compelled by how much of an impact these tariffs have had on all these businesses.”
More than two months after the Supreme Court struck down the administration’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff policy, Schwab is back in court with another client, spice importer Burlap and Barrel, Inc., to challenge a new regime of sanctions imposed just hours after the February court decision.
Ethan Frisch, co-founder of the New York-based spice company, said it was an “easy decision” to join the new round of litigation.
“We find ourselves even now… in a really tough financial situation, essentially our entire operating margin that we generated last year was paid out in tariffs,” Frisch said. “And so money that we would normally have to spend on growth, on hiring, on purchasing — really critical purchasing we need to do to get us through the rest of the year — talking about buying wild cumin from Afghanistan, cinnamon from Vietnam.
“We are in a cash crunch as a result of the close to $200,000 that we spent on tariffs last year. And essentially our business model went from making about 10 cents on every dollar that we could reinvest to now having about one cent on every dollar that we invest in growth.”
Access the full transcript here.
This fellowship is sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as a continuation of a journalism training and award program launched in 2025. NPF is solely responsible for the content.
