Thursday a federal trade court ruled Trump's 10% across-the-board tariffs are invalid. Two companies and Washington state get relief. Basic Fun!, a Florida toy maker, and Burlap & Barrel, a spice importer in New York. The CEO of Basic Fun! was already emailing his customs broker. Good for him.
The other 300 million Americans? No standing. A coalition of 24 states asked for a broader injunction. Denied. You don't import toys or spices directly, so legally you have no case. Rep. John Larson from Connecticut went in front of cameras and called it an illegal tax on the American people and said the administration had already taken nearly $2,000 from the average household. John Larson has been in Congress since 1999. He was not exactly loud about the manufacturing jobs that left Connecticut while he was busy being John Larson.
Here's the number nobody put in the headline: US manufacturing employment is down 82,000 since Trump took office. That stat comes from a group called the American Economic Liberties Project, not a MAGA outfit. You know what number they don't publish? How many of those jobs left between 2001 and 2009 while the courts were not intervening. Courts don't fix trade policy. They never did. The people cheering this ruling are not the ones who watched the plant close. They're the ones who wrote the articles explaining why it was good for consumers.