(Manfred Klimek / Claude Auguste / Editorial team / Source: CNN / animated image (©VOS): Runwayml)
When Donald Trump announced last year that he would raise effective US tariff rates to a level not seen since 1930, much of the American business community remained remarkably silent. The risk of openly opposing the President seemed too great. Those who manage billions in turnover weigh up political conflicts differently from moral imperatives.
One man, however, did so anyway. Victor Owen Schwartz, owner of the New York-based wine importer VOS Selections, became – as reported by CNN – the face of a legal challenge against Trump’s most far-reaching emergency tariffs. And he won.
Schwartz is not a corporate executive, nor a lobbyist with an army of lawyers. He is a wine merchant. A family businessman who imports wines and spirits from 16 countries, who arranges container shipments, calculates margins, and talks to restaurants, specialist retailers and sommeliers. A man with hands-on experience. That is precisely why the tariff policy hit him with full force. Trump had at one point threatened to impose 50 per cent tariffs on certain European products. Anyone who imports wine cannot simply brush off such surcharges.
“We can’t simply raise our prices, and we can’t simply pay them either,” Schwartz is quoted as saying on CNN. He estimated that, since April, he had already had to pay six-figure sums in tariffs. For large corporations, this is a balance-sheet item. For a medium-sized importer, it is a matter of survival.
At first, he hesitated to take on the role of lead plaintiff. There is a difference between joining a lawsuit and publicly taking the lead. Eventually, in April 2025, the Liberty Justice Centre filed the lawsuit VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump. In the end, the Supreme Court ruled that the far-reaching emergency tariffs were unlawful.
This is more than a legal victory. It is a lesson in political effectiveness.
Schwartz described himself as the ‘last line of defence’, whilst large sections of the corporate world remained on the sidelines. The price was high. He spoke of hostility via text message and email, and of security measures in the office. Anyone who takes on the most powerful office in the world does so at a cost.
And yet he stood his ground. The logic was simple, he said: he simply could not afford the levies demanded. This matter-of-factness is perhaps the most powerful statement in this story. It was not about ideology. It was about calculation – and about defending a business model.
According to CNN, refunds running into the hundreds of billions could ultimately be on the cards. Exactly how they would be distributed remains unclear. One thing is clear, however: without the courage of a small wine importer, this ruling would hardly have come about.
For the wine industry, this sends a signal that extends beyond the US. In times of sales crises, consumer reluctance and political uncertainty, there is a tendency to feel like a pawn in the hands of global forces – an industry that has to bear the brunt of others’ pricing decisions and narratives. Yet wine is business. And business is power – if it is prepared to wield it.
Twenty years ago, European winegrowers fought against over-regulation; later, against health campaigns; and now against trade barriers. Often defensively, often quietly in the background. The Schwartz case shows another option: proactive rule of law. Anyone who formulates their arguments clearly and is prepared to take the risk can stand up even to a president.
Interestingly, Schwartz said he would celebrate the victory with an old bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. A detail rich in symbolism: in the end, it is wine once again that brings the story full circle.
The industry has no need to hide. It has networks, jobs, tax revenue – and people who are prepared to take responsibility. Victor Schwartz has shown that political influence is not solely a question of size, but of determination.
That is the real message at a time when many are lamenting the powerlessness of the wine market: sometimes, all it takes is an importer from Brooklyn to bring about a global shift.