Last month, Jonathan Silva, chief executive of WS Gaming Company, stopped a meeting to try to make sense of the Supreme Court’s decision once it was handed down. “I don’t have any legal experience,” he told me. But “I know that at 10 o’clock in the morning, you go to the Supreme Court website, and I know what link to use, and I know what time to refresh it, and I’ve got this page 144—I forget the exact time it is. I’m not a lawyer.”
The thick and cryptic text foretold the future of his small business and tens of thousands like it. A year ago, Donald Trump unilaterally started a global trade war, imposing tariffs on goods imported from many countries and changing the tariffs up and down frequently. Tax charges every American household $1,800 in 2025, reducing GDP growth by 0.5 percent and increasing the unemployment rate by 0.3 percent. Companies had to scramble, change course, and reorganize — especially, smaller companies, which have less bargaining power and access to capital than their larger competitors, and often operate on smaller scales. Many companies failed. Few have failed.
However, trade law experts argued that Trump never had the authority to impose the tariffs in the first place. And as Silva discovered that morning, the Supreme Court agreed. “The framers gave ‘Congress alone’ the power to levy taxes in time of peace,” said Chief Justice John Roberts. “Therefore, the President must ‘clearly demonstrate congressional approval’ to justify his extraordinary claim to that power.” And “can’t.”
Silva sat there for seconds after reading the verdict, he told me, likening the feeling to the final moment of a roller coaster when the line straightens and the cars slow down and the passengers return to the platform. “I took my first breath in 11 months,” he said. “I got a feeling.”
It’s still not clear that he can leave the car just yet, or that any of us are leaving this amusement park anytime soon. The White House has turned around and announced a new 15 percent tariff on imported goods, with a different legal justification – Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. And Trump has promised to continue the trade war as long as he is in office.
Trump’s initial tariffs put WS Game, a family-owned company that produces premium board games, including collectible versions of Clue, Monopoly, and Scrabble, on a “path to survival,” Silva told me. We first he spoke shortly after Trump imposed a 145 percent tariff on the company’s products made in China. That prompted some of its brick-and-mortar retailers to renege on their purchase commitments. The tariff rate dropped to 30 percent, then Trump suspended the tariffs. WS Sports increased production and imported additional containers. “I over-ordered,” Silva said. “Now I’m holding the count.” He added: “I don’t even know what I paid for some of the items, to be honest.”
The company faced declining sales and rising costs, paying $1.6 million in direct import charges. It had to cut its owners’ compensation and stop matching the retirement contributions of its employees. It reduced spending on marketing and human resources. It took out a line of credit, helping it pay the holder for legal representation and $250,000 for research into moving its manufacturing to Vietnam, Mexico, Canada, Thailand or another country.
During the summer, Silva arranged to meet with the Brazilian manufacturer at a convention in Indianapolis. Two weeks before the summit, Trump increased tariffs on Brazilian goods to protest the impeachment of former President Jair Bolsonaro. “It was next to impossible to get any of the expertise and experience we have with our trusted partners in China,” Silva said. With no viable option but to keep the company’s manufacturing where it was, WS Game restructured its business model to shift the tax burden to its retailers.
WS Game tried to reset its production, as Trump wanted companies to do. But “we are at a high level of expectation and quality,” Silva told me. “We don’t just make a regular cardboard box.” Not many American businesses make cardboard boxes, or heirloom quality board games, or the millions of other consumer products that Americans want and need. In the end, WS Game found a single American factory to produce one game, out of 130 in the product line: the upcoming Monopoly set celebrating America’s 250th birthday. However, it could not find an American woodworker to make the houses and small hotels, so it bought plastic. And it couldn’t find a single local dice manufacturer, so it imported them and included a disclaimer.
With tax rates at a more reasonable level, at least for now, WS Game has lowered retail prices, posted new job listings, and paid those matching retirement funds. Things are going well, Silva told me, especially given that a court has ordered the Trump administration to refund money to companies affected by the illegal trade policy. Customs and Border Protection recovers payments “every day,” Richard Eaton, chief judge at the U.S. Court of International Trade, argued. “They are deleting the entries and refunding the money.”
Although not to this extent: The government has collected more than $130 billion in illegal taxes in the past year. And not for this opposition: The Trump administration is seeking to delay the refund process, realizing that CBP will have to go through millions of import records by hand. The President, for his part, calls the Supreme Court “completely irrational and shameful” and says that he does have an “absolute right” to levy business taxes. He looks at the others legal vehicles for new payments, plus 15 percent tax.
Knowing he may face more business turmoil ahead, Silva plans to file for a refund, and has turned down offers from hedge funds to buy his claims nickel or dime to the dollar. (Donors are betting that the Trump administration will eventually pay, but many small importers can’t wait.) But the company will never recover the time and energy it wasted. “There was a lot of time spent focusing on this and not doing what we do best, and that’s bringing family fun back to Friday nights,” he told me.
Even after the Supreme Court’s decision, the effective tax rate in the country remains high—basically around $600. annual tax increase per household and reduce GDP growth by 0.2 percent. Small importers may end up making a lot of money, but American consumers won’t be so lucky. Nobody expects their money back.
