From a square office and complex warehouse in Vernon Hills, Illinois, about twenty kilometers north of the O’Hare airport in Chicago, Rick Woldenberg has a first -hand view of the functioning of world capitalism – or how it worked until recently. The seventy-five man, who was educated by Princeton, came from an entrepreneurial family. In the nineteen years, her father founded a business to provide schools with products designed to help learning, such as reading and mathematics kits. In the nineteen years, his mother founded a sister-based business, which initially provided other companies in the same industry. Since then, the companies of the Woldenberg family, which are now called learning resources and hand2mind, have become a company that employs more than five hundred people and sells everything, blocks of letters to construction kits, with Cooper, a coding robot.
Woldenberg joined learning resources in 1990 and became its managing director eight years later. Since 2019, he has also executed Hand2mind. Business products are designed in Vernon Hills and Torrance, California, where they have another office, but almost all items are made in Asia, mainly in China. Some of them enter by O’Hare, but most are shipped to the ports of the West Coast, then delivered by Rail to the Way of Illinois or sent to customers. Nowadays, distributors include Scholastic, Walmart and Amazon.
In the early years, the Woldenbergs made some of their toys and learning aids in factories in the United States. But, in the 80s and early 90s, they moved almost their entire production in factories in China and Taiwan, where workers in the assembly line gained a fraction of what their American counterparts have done. “Everyone found manufacturers at low prices abroad to build their products, and American manufacturers could not match them,” Woldenberg told me a few weeks ago, on a coffee at the O’Hare Hilton. “We were on the most competitive public market in the world, and I didn’t think we had the choice.” He said that the offshore production has moved to the company to hire more people in the United States, including product designers, sellers, administrative staff and warehouse workers. “I don’t feel guilty of what we have done,” he said. “We have created more than five hundred well -paid jobs, and our products are sold in more than a hundred countries.” (According to Circana, a market research company, Learning Resources is the twenty-fifth toy company in the United States)
April 2, which Donald Trump called “Release dayThe president announced that covered prices that have increased the sample from Chinese imports to a hundred and forty -five percent, overthrowing the Woldenberg business model – and a lot like that. Restring with him, the White House has announced that the prices on Chinese products would be reduced for eighty days, thirty percent, while negotiations between the two countries have taken place. Woldenberg said. “I don’t even know what my costs will be. I live in a reality TV show, not reality. “”
Woldenberg’s first response to the Liberation Day rates was to suspend his plans to build a new warehouse. His second answer was to continue Trump and the administration. On April 22, lawyers acting for learning resources and Hand2mind filed a complaint before the Federal Court, in Washington, DC, which qualified Trump’s prices “an extraordinary executive branch” which “irreparably harm the two companies. Under the Constitution, said the prosecution, Trump did not have the legal power to take these prices without obtaining the approval of the congress. He asked the court to prevent the government from collecting prices from Woldenberg companies. The trial also asked for damages.
The case was deposited at a time when large toy companies, such as Hasbro and Mattel, were standing, apparently distrusting the White House. But Woldenberg, who holds a JD from the Faculty of Law of the University of Chicago and who worked in a law firm of companies before joining the family business, has already been at the bottom of this path. In 2017, during Trump’s first term, he helped direct the opposition of the toy industry to a proposal for “border readjustment tax” – a sort of price – that the Republicans, under pressure from the administration, thought of including in their big tax bill. (The proposal has not been part of the final legislation.) Now that Trump has circumvented the congress and said the right to impose unlimited prices, Woldenberg takes the White House directly. “In the past, I have supported the two parties and I do not consider myself a politician,” he said, explaining the decision to continue. “But I will defend our mission, and I will defend our employees. It is an inherited company, and I feel a certain responsibility on this subject. I will not let Mr. Trump keep him away.”
There are commercial laws that allow the president to collect prices in specific cases, such as when a foreign country has embarked on unfair commercial practices. But these laws do not cover the general prices of the genre that Trump introduced on April 2. The administration, by announcing the levies, rather cited a different law, the international law on the economic powers (IEEPA) of 1977, that the previous presidents used to freeze foreign assets during the national security crises. During a court hearing in Washington a few weeks ago, lawyers of the Ministry of Justice argued that Trump prices were a question of national security and that a decision against the administration “would inquire the president on the world scene, paralyze his ability to negotiate trade agreements and endanger the government’s ability to respond … (the government has also asked the court to transfer the case in another place International, in Manhattan, where trade -related affairs are often heard.) In a decision on May 29, judge Rudolph Poursras rejected the arguments of the administration and made an injunction to prevent the government from perceiving the import rights of learning resources and hand20. “This case does not concern the prices inasmuch as Prices, “wrote Courseras.” It is a question of knowing whether the ieepa allows the president to impose, revoke, stop, restore and adjust the prices to reorganize the global economy. The court is suitable for the complainants that this is not the case. »»
In terms of things, this decision presented a crucial victory in Woldenberg, who attended the hearing with his wife and three adult children, who all work for the company. The decision of judge Courseras one day came after a Federal Court has canceled some of the Trump release day. On May 28, a panel of three judges hearing two distinct cases before the International Trade Court had judged that the prices of April 2 “exceeded any authority granted to the president by the ieepa”. These cases were brought respectively by five small businesses supported by a libertarian legal group and by a group of prosecutors of the Democratic State.
The unfavorable decisions of the two courts were a major legal setback for the White House. It is still far from clear, however, if they will lead to major changes in Trump’s pricing policies – or a lasting relief of its provisions for Woldenberg and others in similar predicates. The Judge Contreras initially delayed the application of his prescription for fourteen days, in order to give the time of administration a call, and last week, he suspended the injunction while this process spawned its path thanks to the Circuit Court of Appeals of DC. Meanwhile, the International Court of Order blocking Trump’s prices had already been suspended. One day after the verdict, the American court of appeal for the federal circuit remained there, pending other legal arguments.