Judges skeptical of Trump using emergency powers for tariff spree
The 11-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit put their most searching inquiries to Assistant US Attorney General Brett Shumate.
'The negative balance of goods is decades and decades old,' one jurist said before asking how the trade deficit could be considered a national emergency given its longstanding nature.
Shumate argued that the gap between US imports and exports had widened recently and further contended that Congress has given presidents broad leeway to wield tariffs.
He cited a 1975 appeals court decision that permitted former President Richard Nixon to slap a 10% charge on imported merchandise to combat inflation four years earlier.
4 The Trump administration argued that President Trump has the authority to slap tariffs against foreign countries unilaterally.
REUTERS
4 The court hearing comes before President Trump's Aug.1 deadline for countries to make deals.
Bloomberg via Getty Images
The hearing on Thursday dealt with the Trump administration's challenge to a May 28 decision by the US Court of International Trade quashing most of the president's tariffs.
The appellate court promptly paused that decision to give time for it to hear the White House case.
At issue is Trump's use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs without congressional approval.
The act gives presidents sweeping powers to regulate international financial transactions and trade, including by imposing economic sanctions, but has never been used to tax imports.
'IEEPA doesn't even say tariffs, doesn't even mention them,' a judge griped at one point.
Shumate admitted that 'no president has ever read IEEPA this way' but insisted Trump's interpretation did not violate the law.
4 The White House has signaled that tariff negotiations with other countries will go down to the wire ahead of the Aug. 1 deadline.
ZUMAPRESS.com
A coalition of 12 blue states and five small businesses brought the case, hoping to get the president's tariff regime thrown out.
Neal Katyal, representing the businesses, warned of 'staggering consequences' should the fees be allowed to go ahead.
'You just heard an argument … that our federal courts are powerless, that the president can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants, so long as he declares an emergency,' chided Katyal, a former solicitor general under Barack Obama.
Heading into the court hearing, Trump stressed the high stakes and warned that if the courts side against him, it could be a death knell to his trade agenda.
'If our Country was not able to protect itself by using TARIFFS AGAINST TARIFFS, WE WOULD BE 'DEAD,' WITH NO CHANCE OF SURVIVAL OR SUCCESS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!' he dramatically warned on Truth Social.
4 President Trump has made overhauling US trade relations a key pillar of his second term agenda.
Bloomberg via Getty Images
It is unclear when the appellate court will rule on the case, V.O.S. Selections v. Trump.
Regardless of the outcome, the matter is likely to go to the Supreme Court.
Since unveiling a slate of customized tariff rates April 2, Trump has imposed a blanket 10% duty on all imports while negotiating framework deals with some of America's biggest trading partners.
Those include the European Union, United Kingdom, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Cambodia and Thailand.
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Top UC campuses usually land near the Ivies in rankings of top colleges and compete for the nation's elite students. They frequently outperform the more expensive Ivies in terms of a financial return on investment, according to a 2022 study by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce. 'They have the power and the position and the funding to hold the line and serve as an example to universities,' Veena Dubal, a professor of law at UC Irvine and general counsel to the American Association of University Professors, told WBUR. Ivy Leaguers, meanwhile, love to brag about how many A-list lawyers they mint — including eight of the nine current Supreme Court Justices. But what good is all that power if they couldn't tap their elite alums to fight back against Trump? Instead, they wilted. They did what the wealthy often do when confronted with a difficult situation: They bought their way out. Columbia paid $220 million in 'tribute' to Don Donald. Brown paid $50 million to the state of Rhode Island, adopted the federal government's definition of 'male' and 'female,' and promised to remove any consideration of race from the admissions process, according to NPR. Harvard is willing to pay up to $500 million, the New York Times reported, a figure Harvard denied. The Ivy grads among you might be asking: Why doesn't the UC just pay Trump to go away? First, UC, which relies heavily on public funding, doesn't have the deep pockets the privately funded Ivies do. And there are strict rules on what the UC can tap its endowment for. (Paying off mob bosses is not on the list.) 'Withdrawals are limited to a portion of interest earnings from the funds and only a limited amount of annual earned income can be withdrawn and spent in any given year. Those funds are not sufficient to replace the state and federal funds that UC relies on for its day-to-day operating costs,' according to the UC. But there's a more existential reason the system cannot pay this ransom: As anyone familiar with a mob shakedown knows, once you start paying for 'protection,' you can't stop. Even more insidious is that Trump is cloaking his shakedown in the guise of addressing antisemitism on campus. To appease him, the Ivy League agreed to take certain Trump-approved steps to address such allegations. 'Trump is now using Jews as human shields to achieve political goals having nothing to do with antisemitism,' said Wiener, a co-chair of the Legislative Jewish Caucus who has faced antisemitic attacks while in office. 'Trump doesn't give a damn about Jews or antisemitism. He has antisemites in his Administration, he tried to elect a Nazi-aligned government in Germany, he dined with Nazi Nick Fuentes, and he spread antisemitic conspiracy theories. … Revoking science research funding in the name of the Jews is utterly is making Jews less safe, and he's making it harder for us to fight actual antisemitism.' So the next move is yours, UC. The system has long competed with the Ivies for students, talent and prestige. Now it could have the ultimate, well, trump card: It could say it refused to buckle when the very future of higher education was on the line.
