Queens, NY (May 14, 2026) Burlap & Barrel, an ecommerce retailer, a leading purveyor of single origin ingredients, and a Public Benefit Corporation, has emerged victorious in its lawsuit against the President of the United States and the administration.
As the first independent food company to file suit against the tariffs, Burlap & Barrel co-founders and co-CEOs Ethan Frisch and Ori Zohar welcome the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in Burlap and Barrel, Inc. v. Trump, holding that the Trump administration’s tariffs imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 are unlawful.
In its decision, the CIT held that Section 122 does not authorize the President to impose these tariffs under current economic conditions. The court recognized that Section 122 is a narrow, time-limited tool intended to address specific balance-of-payments crises—not a blank check for the executive branch to impose worldwide trade restrictions in response to ordinary trade deficits or to circumvent prior judicial rulings.
“This ruling is a major victory for small businesses like ours that depend on fair and predictable trade policy. These tariffs created real challenges for our company and for the farmers we partner with around the world,” said Zohar. “Today’s decision helps ensure that businesses like ours are not unfairly burdened by unlawful trade restrictions.”
“We’re a scrappy, bootstrapped spice company. The new Section 122 tariffs directly threatened our business model, as well as our partner farmers and home cook and professional chef customers,” said Frisch, “That’s why we sued the President to stop them. We are grateful to the Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public-interest law firm, for representing us completely at zero cost to our company.”
Read more about the complaint and related filings in Burlap and Barrel, Inc. v. Trump here.
# # #
About Burlap & Barrel
Founded in 2016, Burlap & Barrel is a single origin spice company and social enterprise working directly with expert spice farmers in more than 20 countries to source unique, beautiful spices for home cooks and professional chefs. Burlap & Barrel's spices taste fresher and more flavorful because they come directly from small farms with a better-than-fair-trade sourcing model that establishes new supply chains to help improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. The lineup includes both exceptional versions of familiar spices like bestsellers Royal Cinnamon and Zanzibar Black Peppercorns, as well as rare botanicals like Amazonian Pompona Vanilla and Wild Timur Pepper from the Himalayas. For more information, please visit burlapandbarrel.com