Court strikes down Trump tariff decrees, says president overstepped his authority

Yahoo

4 days ago

In a ruling late Wednesday, a federal court struck down a wide swath of trade tariff decrees by President Donald Trump since he took office, finding the president overstepped his authority with the international levies.
The ruling impacts new tariffs Trump has issued, without Congressional approval, under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of International Trade said Congress has exclusive authority to set and regulate international commerce and that authority is not superseded by a president's emergency powers declaration.
'The court does not pass upon the wisdom or likely effectiveness of the President's use of tariffs as leverage,' the panel wrote in its ruling, per Reuters. 'That use is impermissible not because it is unwise or ineffective, but because (federal law) does not allow it.'
The ruling is in response to two lawsuits, one filed by a group of small retailers who argued their businesses had been harmed by the tariffs, and another group of 12 Democratic states. The judges gave the Trump administration 10 days to issue new orders reflecting the permanent injunction. Trump lawyers filed a notice of appeal immediately following the decision.
The order will halt the current blanket tariff of 10% on most import goods coming into the U.S., a 30% tariff on Chinese goods and 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico not covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
The ruling does not impact other sector-specific tariffs issued by Trump including current levies of 25% on imported autos, auto parts, steel and aluminum, CNN reported. Those trade levies were issued under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act — a different law than the one Trump cited for his broader trade actions.
'We won — the state of Oregon and state plaintiffs also won,' Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University's Scalia Law School and the plaintiffs' lawyer, said to CNN immediately after the ruling. 'The opinion rules that entire system of liberation day and other IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) tariffs is illegal and barred by permanent injunction.'
On April 2, Trump issued a raft of new trade levies including a blanket 10% tariff on all foreign imports and additional reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries, some as high as 50%, that were assessed on nations identified as having significant trade inequities or barriers.
A week later, the president announced a 90-day pause on the reciprocal levies but kept the 10% blanket tariff in place. At the same time he also upped the import fees on most Chinese import goods to 145%. On May 12, following talks between U.S. and Chinese trade officials, Trump announced he was rolling China import levies back to 30% for 90 days.
Earlier, Trump had declared new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China aiming to quell the flow of illicit drugs and illegal immigration across U.S. borders.
All of those new levies were issued under authority Trump claimed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, but the trade court judges disagreed.
'(International Emergency Economic Powers Act) does not authorize any of the worldwide, retaliatory, or trafficking tariff orders,' the panel of judges wrote in their ruling Wednesday. 'The worldwide and retaliatory tariff orders exceed any authority granted to the president by (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) to regulate importation by means of tariffs. The trafficking tariffs fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders.'
In a statement, White House spokesperson Kush Desai argued trade deficits have created a state of national emergency for the U.S. and the trade court's decision to invalidate Trump's tariff strategy superseded its jurisdiction.
'Foreign countries' nonreciprocal treatment of the UnitedW States has fueled America's historic and persistent trade deficits,' Desai said. 'These deficits have created a national emergency that has decimated American communities, left our workers behind, and weakened our defense industrial base — facts that the court did not dispute.
'It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency. President Trump pledged to put America First, and the administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American greatness.'
Decisions issued by the U.S. Court of International Trade, based in New York, can be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court.