‘I’m going to go down swinging’: Meet the Florida entrepreneur taking on Trump’s tariffs in court

Business owners around the world are still reeling from the sky-high, globe-spanning tariffs President Donald Trump has announced since taking office. Last week, Emily Ley became the first to take her concerns to court.

In a lawsuit filed in a federal court in Florida last Thursday, lawyers representing Ley, a small business owner in Pensacola, argued that Trump’s tariffs on China are “unlawful,” “unconstitutional,” and risk having devastating consequences on businesses like Simplified, the 10-employee stationery company Ley founded in 2008. The suit, which is the first known case to challenge Trump’s tariffs, has, almost overnight, turned Ley into the very public face of a high stakes legal battle that could have sweeping consequences for the global economy. 

“My company is like my fourth child,” Ley tells Fast Company. “I’m going to go down swinging if this is the end of it.”

It was never Ley’s intention to file a suit. A few weeks ago, as Trump’s tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada went into effect, and the White House warned of more to come, Ley simply wanted to give people a better understanding of the tangible impact that rising tariffs would have on a small business like hers, which sells, among other things, day planners that are made in China. “I was seeing so much misinformation and misunderstanding about who pays the tariffs, and what they’re for,” Ley says. “I just felt like I needed to share a small business perspective that came from a real person, a real human.”

So she wrote about her experience on Instagram: How since 2017, her company has paid $1.17 million in tariffs on imports from China, how this year, under Trump’s increased tariffs, it could be on the hook for $350,000 more, and how those costs have driven prices up for customers and salaries down for employees. “I cannot be quiet about this anymore,” Ley wrote. “Tariffs are killing businesses.”

The post, which quickly went viral, caught the attention of lawyers at the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), a legal group that fights what it views as government overreach. Ley’s first conversation with the firm led to “a zillion” more, she says, until finally, last week—just a day after Trump unveiled a new slew of global tariffs, sending the world economy into freefall—NCLA filed the suit on Ley’s behalf, asking the court to block Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods.

Ley’s case focuses specifically on two executive orders Trump signed in February and March, both of which imposed tariffs on Chinese goods in the name of stopping the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. In the orders, Trump declared the fentanyl crisis a national emergency and cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) as his authority to enact the tariffs. 

But according to the lawsuit, IEEPA doesn’t give the president that power—or even mention tariffs at all. Only Congress, NCLA argues, can grant permission to impose tariffs. The president could implement trade embargoes or sanctions under the law, but only if they’re “necessary” to address the emergency, and Trump’s executive orders “show no connection between the opioid problem and the tariff he ordered,” the complaint reads.

While Simplified’s case is focused specifically on the Chinese tariffs, NCLA says a ruling could impact the full scope of global tariffs Trump imposed last week on most countries around the world. “We are saying that the statute doesn’t allow the President to impose tariffs no matter what kind of emergency is declared or exists,” NCLA’s Senior Litigation Counsel John Vecchione tells Fast Company.

In a statement to Fast Company, White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said, “President Trump has broad authority to impose tariffs to address issues of national emergency, such as the opioid [epidemic]. The Trump Administration looks forward to victory in court.” 

That NCLA is the group bringing the case forward is itself significant. Though the organization describes itself as nonpartisan, it has frequently fought for causes championed by conservatives, including chipping away at the regulatory powers of government agencies, and has in the past received financial support from right-wing financiers, including billionaire Charles Koch’s foundation. NCLA’s involvement reflects the extent to which opposition to Trump’s tariffs cuts across party lines.

Ley, for one, who is a registered Democrat, founded Simplified after designing the stationery for her own wedding invitations. What started as a side hustle evolved over the years until, in 2011, she began branching out into designing other merchandise like day planners and calendars. 

Initially, she manufactured those planners in the U.S. for $38 a unit and sold them on Etsy for $50 each. “It wasn’t sustainable,” Ley says. So she turned to Chinese manufacturers to build the company. By 2017, business was booming, but the tariffs Trump slapped on Chinese goods in his first term were a blow to the bottom line. “It meant that I had to earmark dollars that would have gone to hiring, that would have gone to employee bonuses that could have gone to philanthropic efforts or growth,” she says. “We absorbed it as much as we could,” including by raising prices.

But she’s not sure the business could sustain another increase—particularly not one as stark as what Trump’s proposing. Simplified is set to receive a new shipment of inventory within weeks, but she has no idea what the tariff bill will look like when it arrives. In the suit, NCLA argues that Trump’s actions have “inflicted economic and competitive harm” on Simplified.

Ley may be scared about what lies ahead, but she’s hopeful her case inspires other business owners to stand up too. “This is the reality of what’s happening,” she says. “I have written the checks. It is a fact, who’s paying for this. It’s not a political belief.”