It’s one of the most significant economic cases to reach the Supreme Court in years – the blockbuster battle over Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs – but the nation’s largest companies are sitting on the sidelines.
The battle to stop Trump’s tariffs is being waged by a group of small businesses – including a family-owned toymaker in Illinois and a New York-based wine importer. They have advanced the case to the nation’s highest court even as their larger and better-known competitors have remained notably silent.
The lack of public input from major US companies on the docket of a Supreme Court appeal with potentially vast consequences for their bottom line and the economy as a whole is unusual and likely based at least in part on a fear of retribution from the White House, multiple people involved with the case and outside experts said.
Big businesses are waging a war of attrition, they’ll absorb the extra cost of tariffs while they let the smaller players, who can’t absorb that kind of added cost, slowly die out so that they can take over a bigger market share.
Such brave leaders. What captains of industry.



