These 5 small business are suing Trump over his ‘Liberation Day' tariffs
Five American small businesses will ask a U.S. court on Tuesday to halt President Donald Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs, arguing the president overstepped his authority by declaring a national emergency to impose across-the-board taxes on imports from nations that sell more to the U.S. than they buy.
Tuesday's hearing before a panel of three judges at the New York-based U.S. Court of International Trade will be the first major legal test of Trump's tariffs.
The lawsuit was filed by the nonpartisan Liberty Justice Center on behalf of five small U.S. businesses that import goods from countries targeted by the tariffs.
The companies, which range from a New York wine and spirits importer to a Virginia-based maker of educational kits and musical instruments, say the steep 'Liberation Day' tariffs that Trump imposed on April 2 are illegal and will hurt their ability to do business.
Small businesses are being harmed by the threat of increased costs, as well as 'minute by minute changes' that prevent them from planning ahead, said Jeffrey Schwab, an attorney representing the plaintiffs.
'Our clients have no certainty on what the tariffs are going to be at any point, and that's exactly the problem,' Schwab said. 'One person shouldn't have unilateral authority to impose tariffs on every country at any rate, at any time that he wants.'
The Liberty Justice Center's lawsuit is one of seven court challenges to Trump's tariff policies, and it is the first to seek a ruling that would stop the tariffs from moving forward.
The Court of International Trade previously rejected the small businesses' request to temporarily pause the tariffs while their lawsuit went forward, but then quickly scheduled Tuesday's court hearing to decide whether to rule against the tariffs or impose a longer-term pause.
Trump imposed the new tariffs on April 2, saying the U.S. trade deficit was a 'national emergency' that justified a 10% across-the-board tariff on all imports, with higher tariff rates for countries with which the U.S. has the largest trade deficits, particularly China.
Many of those country-specific tariffs were paused a week later, and on Monday the Trump administration said it was also temporarily slashing the steepest China tariffs while working on a longer-term trade deal with Beijing. Both countries agreed over the weekend to cut tariffs on each other for at least 90 days.
Trump's on-and-off-again tariffs have shocked U.S. markets, but he has justified them as a way to restore America's manufacturing capability.
The president's executive order announcing the tariffs invoked laws including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives presidents special powers to combat unusual or extraordinary threats to the U.S.
The Liberty Justice Center said the law does not give the president the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs 'on any country he chooses at any rate he chooses.'
The law is meant to address 'unusual and extraordinary' threats, and the U.S.' decades-long practice of buying more goods than it exports does not qualify as an emergency that would trigger IEEPA, according to the lawsuit.
The U.S. Department of Justice has argued that IEEPA gives presidents broad authority to regulate imports in response to a national emergency. It has said that the plaintiffs' lawsuit should be thrown out, because they have not been harmed by tariffs they have not yet paid, and because only Congress, and not private businesses, can challenge a national emergency declared by the President under IEEPA.
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
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'What a waste:' US scientists decry Trump's 47% cuts to NASA science budget
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Since January, when President Donald Trump took office for the second time, the White House has been asking U.S. government organizations to implement some pretty radical changes. Things have been tense, to say the least. Thousands of federal workers have been laid off with little explanation, programs that improve diversity in the workplace have been eliminated, research grants have been cancelled in large sweeps, and international college students find themselves at risk of losing their legal status. One government organization that could be hit the hardest is NASA. The agency has faced a particularly extensive amount of pressure from the Trump administration: surveillance, goal restructuring, website purging and more. Other federal science organizations haven't been spared, either — places like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have been targeted as well. The ground of U.S. science seems to be quaking for political reasons rather than scientific ones, leaving scientists disheartened by their government and anxious about what's next. "I don't think it is an overstatement to say that morale among U.S.-based scientists is at an all-time low," Sarah Horst, an associate professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at The Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, told "People are afraid for their jobs, their students, the projects they've often spent decades working on, and they are afraid for the future of the United States." And things only got worse on May 30, when the Trump administration's fiscal year 2026 budget request for NASA came out. It proposes cutting the agency's science funding by 47%, and the agency's workforce by about one-third — from 17,391 to 11,853. This budget has to be officially passed by Congress to take effect, but if it indeed does, the effects could be brutal. "That would represent the smallest NASA workforce since mid-1960, before the first American had launched into space," Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, a nonprofit exploration and advocacy organization, told "If this budget is made real, I am most concerned about people," John O'Meara, chief scientist at the Keck Observatory, told "Missions deliver data and are essential, but the data is meaningless without the people there to interpret it, test theories and share discoveries with the world." Perhaps the most striking aspect of the White House's 2026 NASA budget proposal is the sheer amount of missions it would cancel altogether: 41 projects, as the Planetary Society said in a statement denouncing the report. "This is the extinction-level event we were warning people about," Dreier said. Some specifics: The sharply reduced budget would cancel the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, which was meant to bring samples of the Red Planet's surface to Earth — samples that NASA's Perseverance rover has been dutifully collecting over the last few years, and which scientists have long stressed must be analyzed in a lab to reach their full potential. MSR has experienced its own share of complications since its genesis, to be fair, including a huge price tag and what some believe is an overcomplicated mechanism of sample retrieval. However, cancelling the project outright instead of coming up with a solution would waste much of Perseverance's work on the Red Planet. The OSIRIS-APEX mission (you may remember it by its previous moniker, OSIRIS-REx) would also be cut off. This mission successfully sent a spacecraft on a multi-billion-mile expedition to an asteroid named Bennu, then had it grab a few pieces of the asteroid before traveling all the way back to Earth and safely dropping the samples to the ground. This same probe is now on round two, headed to examine the infamous asteroid Apophis — but if the FY26 NASA budget is confirmed, it won't complete its trip. "I'm personally mostly concerned for in-flight missions that already have a significant investment in both taxpayer dollars and peoples' lives/careers (including my own)," Kevin McGill, an employee at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the agency's lead center for robotic planetary exploration, told "Luckily, my work on [the Curiosity Mars rover] and Mars2020 [Perseverance] are mostly safe, but a lot of other stuff isn't." The budget also suggests ceasing operations for the Jupiter-orbiting Juno spacecraft, which has been circling our solar system's gas giant since 2016 while regularly delivering rich information about the world and its moons. Juno is responsible for all those swirly blue images of Jupiter the astronomy community holds high; it took five years for this spacecraft to get to where it is, and many more for it to be built in the first place. "The operating missions cancellations alone represent over $12 billion of invested taxpayer value — and once they're gone, they're gone. It would take years and many millions more to replace them," Dreier said. NASA would also need to pull out of its collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) on the Rosalind Franklin rover — for the second time, no less — which is a robotic life-hunting explorer set to launch toward Mars in 2028. NASA had to pull out in 2012 because of budget cuts as well but re-entered the rover program after ESA cut ties with its other partner, the Russian space agency Roscosmos, once Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. "This makes the U.S. an untrustworthy partner and our allies hesitate the next time we ask them for help," Dreier said. Two operational Mars orbiters — Mars Odyssey and MAVEN — would be cancelled as well, as would the New Horizons spacecraft currently studying the outer reaches of the solar system and the DaVinci and VERITAS missions, which would explore Venus. The Lunar Gateway, which NASA envisioned as a sort of International Space Station around the moon, would also be cancelled. "What was surprising was the level of cuts within parts of each of the agencies. An example is astrophysics, where the cut was nearly 2/3 of the astrophysics budget," O'Meara said. According to the Planetary Society's analysis of the budget, that huge astrophysics reduction could mean eight spacecraft dedicated to studying extreme events in the universe (think, the Chandra X-ray Observatory) would be terminated. This analysis also suggests 10 missions constructed to study the region around Earth and the sun would be cancelled, as well as about a dozen Earth-specific missions that help scientists forecast natural disasters such as hurricanes and track global warming. The latter is especially concerning, given the speed with which Earth is heating up due to human activities that lead to greenhouse gas emissions — activities the Trump administration favors, such as burning coal for cheap power. Per the budget proposal, the White House also wants NASA to eliminate its "green aviation" spending, dedicated to making airplanes better for the environment, and instead work on "protecting the development of technologies with air traffic control and defense applications." It is also worth considering that other Trump-mandated moves have heavily impacted climate initiatives as well: more than 800 NOAA workers were laid off, for example, and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which houses climate change records dating back to the 1800s, was closed down — leading members of NASA's largest union to speak out in solidarity with their coworkers. Hundreds of scientists working on the National Climate Assessment, a huge report that details the dangers of climate change for policymakers to lean on, were also dismissed. (That represented all of the authors of this report). "This budget request, and its implications, has been highly disruptive to the entire field," O'Meara said. "We are forced to focus on 'what-if' planning that changes in scope rapidly. That takes the time away from what we do best: doing science and sharing it with the world." Furthermore, the White House's FY26 NASA budget proposal centers around a shift toward human missions to the Red Planet; this was a rare area that saw a budget boost in the President's request. For example, one slide in the budget summary says NASA should invest "more than $1 billion in new technology investments to enable a crewed mission to Mars." Another says the agency should allocate "$200M for Commercial Mars Payload Services (CMPS) to start launching robotic precursor missions to the Martian surface, and $80M to start deploying communications relay capabilities for Mars." "It just bothers me that they are changing almost the entirety of NASA's mission to this pipe dream of a human mission to Mars in any reasonable time frame and cost," McGill said. reached out to NASA for comment on the possible impact of these budget cuts, and was directed to acting administrator Janet Petro's statement in the proposal's Technical Supplement. This statement is supportive of the budget request overall, mentioning items such as a renewed push for human spaceflight to the moon and Mars. "The President's Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Request for NASA reflects the Trump-Vance Administration's commitment to strengthening America's leadership in space exploration while exercising fiscal responsibility. With this budget, we aim to shape a Golden Age of innovation and exploration," it reads. This shift toward Mars crewed missions is perhaps predictable, given Trump's affiliation with SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk. (Former affiliation, maybe, given the heated feud currently unfolding on social media between the two.) Musk was a prominent backer of Trump's campaign and worked very closely with him over the past four months. For example, the SpaceX chief ran the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE), which was responsible for the bulk of government funding cuts in the name of saving "wasted taxpayer money." Independently, Musk has earned a reputation as maybe the most outspoken advocate of settling Mars, even going so far as to say he wishes to "die on Mars." SpaceX, as well as its fans, are extremely focused on achieving that goal. "In isolation, a serious humans to Mars campaign should be exciting — Mars exploration is a worthy goal, and The Planetary Society has advocated for that for years," Dreier said. "But the cost here is too high." Another concern Dreier has is that the White House expects to achieve this major goal while simultaneously reducing NASA's workforce at an unprecedented rate. "This isn't just poor policy," he added. "It's fundamentally wasteful and inefficient, exactly what this administration is saying it does not want." And the layoffs could be even more far-reaching than anticipated. McGill says morale at JPL had already been very low after sweeping layoffs took place last year, but also that the energy was further damaged by the agency's recent return-to-office order. For context, nearly 5,500 JPL employees who have been working remotely since the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic were told they must return to in-person work. The deadlines for that return were Aug. 25 for general employees within California and Oct. 27 for teleworkers living outside the state. "Employees who do not return by their required date will be considered to have resigned," JPL officials said in a workforce-wide email that was obtained by "It's clear that it's a silent layoff of the over 1,000 remote employees who they don't want to pay severance to," a NASA employee at JPL not authorized to speak on behalf of the agency previously told McGill says the order "threatens to decimate the workforce and a lot of critical institutional knowledge." "I love JPL and its mission, but it's been a rough time as of late," he said. According to Dreier, there's good news and bad news concerning whether the budget proposal will go through. The good news is that, as he explains, there seems to be bipartisan dislike for the proposal. "We've heard directly from multiple congressional offices — Republican and Democrat — that this budget is 'dead on arrival,'" he said. Of note, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation released his legislative directives for Senate Republicans' budget reconciliation bill on Friday (June 6). The senator proposes dedicating $10 billion more to NASA's science programs — and, though most of it is indeed in line with the FY26 budget request's Mars endeavors, some of that funding would be used for other things, like NASA Space Launch System (SLS) rocket meant for moon exploration and Lunar Gateway. This united aversion to the budget proposal is unsurprising. The bipartisan U.S. Planetary Science Caucus, for instance, previously released a statement in response to early blueprints of the proposal that suggested the huge cuts we're seeing presented now. "We are extremely alarmed by reports of a preliminary White House budget that proposes cutting NASA Science funding by almost half and terminating dozens of programs already well underway, like the Mars Sample Return mission and the Roman Space Telescope," co-chairs Rep. Judy Chu (D-California) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) wrote. Such agreement across the aisle makes sense when we consider how long it takes for space missions to reach fruition. Collaboration isn't just key — it's unavoidable. "Spaceflight, and human spaceflight in particular, requires hand-off from one administration to another," Dreier said. "The timelines are just too long for any one presidential administration." The bad news, however, is the White House may have a workaround. Related Stories: — 'This is an attack on NASA.' Space agency's largest union speaks out as DOGE cuts shutter science institute located above 'Seinfeld' diner in NYC — Saving Gateway, SLS and Orion? Sen. Ted Cruz proposes $10 billion more for NASA's moon and Mars efforts — 'Their loss diminishes us all': Scientists emphasize how Trump's mass NOAA layoffs endanger the world "Even if Congress ultimately rejects this budget, the slow pace of legislation and gridlock we've seen in recent years make it unlikely that appropriations will be in place by October 1st of this year," Dreier said. "If there's another continuing resolution, the White House budget office will throttle spending to match the lowest of all possible budget scenarios: theirs. So, we face the possibility of these cuts going into effect by default. Given the breadth and depth of these cuts, that could be very hard to recover from." "This budget proposal threatens to tear down that carefully constructed coalition in favor of a narrow vision that lacks the political durability necessary for long-term success," he added. "What a waste."
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European Space Agency reveals 3 key space missions threatened by Trump's NASA budget cuts
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The European Space Agency (ESA) has revealed that three of the 19 missions it is planning or operating in collaboration with NASA are at risk as a result of President Trump's proposed budget cuts, which could slash finances available to the U.S space agency by 24%. During a press conference held on Thursday (June 12), ESA Director of Science Carole Mundell revealed that the space-based gravitational wave observatory LISA, the Venus orbiter EnVision, and the largest X-ray observatory ever planned, NewAthena, could be threatened if the proposed NASA budget cuts in Trump's FY26 budget go ahead. ESA thinks that at this initial stage, the impact can be mitigated on the other 16 missions in collaboration with NASA, but the remaining three missions may require a rethink if they happen at all. "We're looking at three potential missions that, should the budget proposal come to pass as written, would require recovery actions. That's LISA, EnVision, the NewAthena," Mundell said. ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher added: "This is an ongoing negotiation in the United States. It is not for us as ESA to comment on these negotiations or to interfere, but we are impacted in quite a number of domains that are, at least at the moment, proposed for cancellations or reductions. "This will require that some of the activities may be frozen. No decisions or cancellations have yet been made because the decisions on the side of the U.S. are not yet finalized. We need to wait for the final decisions from the U.S." Mundell continued by underlining how deeply ESA values the collaboration between Europe and NASA, but added that Europe does have or could acquire the technical capabilities to reduce to reproduce missing elements. "That's something that we're now working through," she number of missions that could be threatened if ESA is forced to repurpose funds extends beyond the three missions mentioned above. Though the Nov. 16, 2025 launch of the sea-level rise monitoring Sentinel-6B spacecraft will go ahead as planned, its sibling mission, Sentinel-6C, could also be impacted by the proposed budget cuts if they are passed successfully. "It was my proposal when I was director of Earth observation, to rename a satellite Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich [after former director of the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters from 2006 to 2019]," Aschbacher added. "It would be a pity if Sentinel-6C were not funded or supported, as it is a successor of the mission Michael Freilich, which is still in space. We offered our satellite to be named after a NASA Administrator as a very visible sign of the of the deepness of the cooperation between NASA and ESA." Proposed U.S. budget cuts could also impact the planned Mars rover Rosalind Franklin, previously known as the ExoMars rover. That is because the robotic explorer named after the esteemed British chemist was set to feature several components supplied by NASA. ESA may now seek to develop on its own the technologies for the three main elements of the rover set to be provided by NASA: its launcher, radio isotope heater unit, and aerobraking engine. This will take time and may impact the mission's timeline, which would have seen Rosalind Franklin head to Mars in 2028. Related Stories: — Trump administration proposes slashing NASA budget by 24% — Experts alarmed as White House proposes 'largest single-year cut to NASA in American history' — Trump's 2026 budget plan would cancel NASA's Mars Sample Return mission. Experts say that's a 'major step back' Of course, nothing is yet set in stone, with the U.S. Congress yet to have the final say on how to allocate federal dollars. A final decision on the FY 2026 Discretionary Budget is expected in Fall 2025. Meanwhile, ESA will meet in late November to finalize its own budget. This means that the space agency may have to move ahead with contingency planning and budgeting before the final outcome of proposed U.S. budget cuts is known. "The timing is expected to be maybe just before decisions are being made, and the fiscal year 26 budget will be known for sure. We need to assess on one side, how much it costs to wait, and how long we can wait," Aschbacher said. "There is a lot of analysis and options that need to be verified and need to be discussed."In brief, the main highlight, or the main point, is that we have agreed to make sure that Europe is increasing its resilience and autonomy to make sure that we have the technologies we need in the near future."
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'If Mom Dies First, We Lose The House': Suze Orman Warns What Can Go Wrong Without A Trust
When it comes to protecting family property, waiting too long to set up a trust can come with serious consequences — especially in complex family situations. On a recent episode of the "Women & Money" podcast, personal finance expert Suze Orman warned listeners about the risks of leaving a home outside of a trust, using a real-life question from a concerned listener as an example. A listener named Yvonne wrote in to explain that her mother still lives in the family home with one of her sons. The father lives elsewhere with a girlfriend, though the parents are still legally married. The listener and her wife already have their own trust and are hoping to help her mother create one for the house. Don't Miss: Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — Inspired by Uber and Airbnb – Deloitte's fastest-growing software company is transforming 7 billion smartphones into income-generating assets – The goal is for the home to be passed on to the four children — Yvonne and her siblings — when the mother passes away. But as Orman quickly pointed out, things can go wrong if the details aren't handled correctly, especially in a community property state like California. "The real question at hand, Yvonne: how is title to this house held?" Orman asked. She then explained that if the home is owned jointly with the right of survivorship and the mother passes away first, the father would automatically inherit the entire house — no matter what the mother's will or trust says. That's because how an asset is titled overrides the instructions in a will or trust. In this case, the father could then leave the home to someone else, including his girlfriend, and the children would be left with nothing. Trending: Maximize saving for your retirement and cut down on taxes: . To prevent that outcome, Orman offered a clear plan: Transfer the Title: First, the mother needs to get the title of the house into her name alone. This may require a divorce or legal agreement, especially since they are still married. Set Up a Trust: Once the home is in her name, the next step is to transfer the home into a living trust. This allows the mother to remain the beneficiary while she's alive, and then pass the house to her children as she wishes after her death. Act Now: Orman emphasized the urgency: "Otherwise, your greatest nightmare if she dies first is absolutely going to happen." A living trust helps avoid probate, gives clarity over who receives the asset, and protects it from being redirected if unexpected life events occur — such as a surviving spouse remarrying or changing their will. Though Orman also mentioned that putting the kids directly on the title might sound like a quick fix, she warned against it due to tax complications like missing out on a step-up in your family owns a home and you want to ensure it passes smoothly to the next generation, it's essential to look beyond just having a will. Without a trust — and the proper title setup — your loved ones could lose more than just a piece of property. Now may be the right time to have that conversation. Read Next: The average American couple has saved this much money for retirement —? Deloitte's fastest-growing software company partners with Amazon, Walmart & Target – Many are rushing to Image: Shutterstock Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? APPLE (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report TESLA (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report This article 'If Mom Dies First, We Lose The House': Suze Orman Warns What Can Go Wrong Without A Trust originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
