Vernon Hills toy manufacturer sues Trump administration again over new round of tariffs

Learning Resources, the Vernon Hills toymaker that successfully brought down the Trump administration’s 2025 tariffs in a seminal Supreme Court decision, is once again suing the federal government over the latest round of sweeping global tariffs.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in the U.S. Court of International Trade with co-plaintiff HMTX Industries, a Connecticut-based flooring company, challenges the 10% to 12.5% tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on top trading partners for alleged forced labor practices.

The tariffs levied Friday by the Trump administration invoke Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which empowers the president to implement tariffs on countries that engage in unfair trade practices. The Office of the United States Trade Representative cited forced labor in global supply chains at the top 60 trade partners covering 99.4% of U.S. imports.

“It’s not really about forced labor; it’s about raising taxes,” said Elana Ruffman, chief marketing officer at Learning Resources, the family-owned educational toy manufacturer in north suburban Vernon Hills that won its version of David v. Goliath.

Learning Resources filed its initial lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s tariffs in April 2025, seeing it through to the Supreme Court and clawing back tens of billions for companies across the U.S. The new tariffs replace temporary 10% global tariffs Trump imposed in February after the Supreme Court struck down the first round of tariffs levied under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, ruling it exceeded the president’s authority without congressional approval.

The lawsuit filed Friday alleges that the Trump administration has tried “to re-create materially the same global tariff regime” under three different statutes, but concludes that the “third time’s not the charm” for the federal government.

“They don’t actually prove out that there’s forced labor in the 60 economies that they’re targeting,” Ruffman told the Tribune. “They use very fuzzy language and fuzzy examples, not concrete specifics, as to why they believe this is creating a competitive disadvantage for American companies. It’s all a guise to raise money.”

In February, the Supreme Court ordered the government to refund about $160 billion in illegally collected tariff revenue to businesses. Ruffman said Learning Resources has received about $10 million of the $12 million in additional expenses it incurred from the illegal tariffs.

But economic studies have shown that customers, not companies, have mostly paid the price for Trump’s tariffs. And those bills were highest in Illinois and other Midwest states.

In 2025, Trump administration tariffs raised costs for the average Midwest household by more than $2,000, or 55% higher than the national average, according to a study released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Midwest Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Tariffs added $2,236 in annual expenses to the average Illinois household, while costs rose by an average of $2,586 in Indiana and $3,158 in Michigan, according to the study.

The study also found that the 2025 tariffs shrunk the Midwest economy by $18 billion, reduced manufacturing employment by more than 41,000 and “disproportionately impacted” low-income households.

“The data confirms that the trade war launched in 2025 has been a substantial headwind for the economy, with Midwest households faring far worse than the nation as a whole,” said report co-author Frank Manzo, an economist at the Illinois Economic Policy Institute, a La Grange-based nonpartisan research organization.

Learning Resources and its sister company, hand2mind, which have 500 employees worldwide and a 1.1 million-square-foot warehouse at their Vernon Hills headquarters, make educational toys such as the Pretend & Play Cash Register and Kanoodle, outsourcing about half of the manufacturing to China.

Last year, the company raised prices across its product lines and cut expenses out of its marketing budget to absorb some of the tariff costs, but did not implement any layoffs.

In 2026, the company held the line on prices, despite the implementation of new tariffs, as a way of sharing the rebated money from the illegal 2025 tariffs with its customers, Ruffman said.

“We did not change our prices for 2026,” Ruffman said. “That’s our mechanism of trying to get the money back to the consumers.”

Not only is Learning Resources avoiding layoffs or passing new tariff costs along to customers, but the company has committed to expansion through an EDGE tax incentive agreement with the state, Ruffman said.

Learning Resources has broken ground on a new 700,000-square-foot facility in Vernon Hills that will serve as hand2mind’s primary distribution center. In addition, the company has committed to hiring 37 new full-time positions across both office and warehouse operations, as well as retaining 288 existing Illinois jobs as part of the agreement.

The state’s Economic Development for a Growing Economy program offers annual corporate tax credits to qualifying businesses that create jobs, investment and training programs in Illinois.

The new facility is expected to open in 2028, Ruffman said.