The legal team that successfully challenged U.S. President Donald Trump’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)-backed tariffs is now pursuing a case against the administration’s latest Section 301 tariffs.
The Liberty Justice Center filed V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump in April 2025, just days after Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs. That lawsuit ultimately ended up in a 6-3 ruling at the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year that invalidated the tariffs and kicked off a lengthy refund process that is still ongoing.
Within days of the court ruling, Trump enacted a new set of tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, and while those tariffs were also ruled illegal by the U.S. Court of International Trade, collection of the duties continued until 24 July. On that same date, the Trump administration announced a new set of Section 301 tariffs on dozens of countries and the E.U., claiming they weren’t doing enough to fight forced labor.
As the administration enacted the Section 301 tariffs, Liberty Justice Center filed a new lawsuit while representing two companies – Burlap & Barrel and Collective Horology – challenging them as illegal.
“This is the third time the administration has attempted to impose its global tariff policy without following the statutory limits,” Liberty Justice Center Senior Counsel and Director of Litigation Jeffrey Schwab said in a release.
Liberty Justice Center said the Trump administration’s use of forced labor as a reason does not justify the application of Section 301.
“Forced labor is morally indefensible, but an important objective does not give the government permission to ignore the law,” Liberty Justice Center Chair and CEO Sara Albrecht said. “The administration allowed one global tariff to expire and immediately replaced it with another under a different statute. Changing the statute doesn’t change the law. Every tariff authority has limits, and every administration must respect them.”
Liberty Justice Center’s lawsuit is arguing the Trump administration is using Section 301 as a means of simply replacing the Section 122 tariffs.
Section 301 duties took effect at 12:01 a.m. on 24 July, or just a minute after the Section 122 surcharge ended, using the same two-tier tariff structure. It also pointed out that the USTR investigations were only initiated after the U.S. Supreme Court decision and only targeting the same countries as the Section 122 tariffs.
“The lawsuit argues that the government cannot preserve a predetermined global tariff policy simply by moving from one statute to another,” the Liberty Justice Center said.
The lawsuit also points out that many of the products being tariffed don’t have any connection to forced labor, including goods imported by small businesses like Burlap & Barrel and Collective Horology that have transparent, responsible supply chains. Burlap & Barrel imports single-origin spices sourced directly from smallholder farms, while Collective Horology is a California-based retailer that supports independent watchmakers to consumers throughout the U.S.
“Burlap & Barrel was built around transparent supply chains, direct sourcing, and long-term relationships with farmers,” Burlap & Barrel Co-Founder and Co-CEO Ethan Frisch said in a release. “These tariffs would punish a responsible American business and the farmers we work with, without showing how taxes on our spices would address the policies of foreign governments that USTR says it is targeting.”
Supreme Crab CEO Troy Turkin told SeafoodSource the tariffs are effecting everyone in the seafood industry.
“I was expecting it and wasn’t really surprised and hope it’s not going to go up more,” he said.
He added that his products are also vetted before being imported and go through social audits to ensure there is no forced labor in the supply chain.
The lawsuit states the Trump administration’s use of Section 301 is going against its purpose as a targeted economic method of pushing countries to rectify an issue.
“Section 301 is a targeted, country-specific, and practice-specific remedial authority. It is not a freestanding authorization to tax substantially all imports from substantially all countries at preestablished rates,” Schwab said.
Vinicius Adam, an attorney with VAdam Law, told SeafoodSource he’s recommending seafood companies keep a close eye on lawsuits related to the tariffs, much like he did in the last round of tariffs. Adam represented Netuno in its lawsuit against the Trump administration over the IEEPA tariffs and recommended other companies consider lawsuits of their own ahead of any potential refund process.
“I think importers should follow the developments in this lawsuit. Section 301 tariffs are intended to be targeted at a specific country or trade practice, and the tariffs are supposed to achieve a policy objective related to that country or practice,” Adam said. “Imposing these tariffs so broadly does not appear to be what Congress intended. Moreover, given the administration's emphasis on using tariffs as leverage in trade negotiations, it creates the impression that these tariffs are intended to serve as a substitute for the IEEPA tariffs that were struck down.”
Adam said given the result of the IEEPA legislation, “it may be prudent to wait and see how these [Liberty Justice Center] challenges develop.”
