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News18
4 days ago
- Business
- News18
Trump Tariffs May Remain In Effect While Appeals Proceed: US Court
The appeals court has yet to rule on whether the tariffs are permissible under an emergency economic powers act that Trump cited to justify them, but it allowed the duties to remain in place while the appeals play out. The Federal Circuit said the litigation raised issues of 'exceptional importance" warranting the court to take the rare step of having the 11-member court hear the appeal, rather than have it go before a three-judge panel first. It scheduled arguments for July 31. The tariffs, used by Trump as negotiating leverage with U.S. trading partners, and their on-again, off-again nature, have shocked markets and whipsawed companies of all sizes as they seek to manage supply chains, production, staffing and prices. The ruling has no impact on other tariffs levied under more traditional legal authority, such as duties on steel and aluminum imports. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled on May 28 that the U.S. Constitution gave Congress, not the president, the power to levy taxes and tariffs, and that the president had exceeded his authority by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law intended to address 'unusual and extraordinary" threats during national emergencies. The Trump administration quickly appealed the ruling, and the Federal Circuit in Washington put the lower court decision on hold the next day while it considered whether to impose a longer-term pause. The May 28 ruling came in a pair of lawsuits, one filed by the nonpartisan Liberty Justice Center on behalf of five small U.S. businesses that import goods from countries targeted by the duties, and the other by 12 U.S. states led by Oregon. Jeffrey Schwab, an attorney for the small businesses that sued, said Tuesday's federal appeals court decision was disappointing, but it did not mean that the Trump administration would win in the end. 'It's important to note that every court to rule on the merits so far has found these tariffs unlawful, and we have faith that this court will likewise see what is plain as day: that IEEPA does not allow the president to impose whatever tax he wants whenever he wants," Schwab said Tuesday. The White House and state of Oregon did not immediately respond to requests for comment after normal business hours on Tuesday. Trump has claimed broad authority to set tariffs under IEEPA. The 1977 law has historically been used to impose sanctions on enemies of the U.S. or freeze their assets. Trump is the first U.S. president to use it to impose tariffs. Trump has said that the tariffs imposed in February on Canada, China and Mexico were to fight illegal fentanyl trafficking at U.S. borders, denied by the three countries, and that the across-the-board tariffs on all U.S. trading partners imposed in April were a response to the U.S. trade deficit. Advertisement
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Appeals court lifts first block on Trump tariffs
A federal appeals court lifted the first of two rulings blocking President Trump's tariffs on Thursday, handing him a temporary win after a lower court rejected the administration's legal defense hours earlier. Many of Trump's tariffs remain blocked under a separate ruling issued by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., though that judge gave the administration two weeks to appeal before it goes into effect. But the new ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit lifts the initial block imposed Wednesday evening by a New York-based court that handles trade cases. 'The judgments and the permanent injunctions entered by the Court of International Trade in these cases are temporarily stayed until further notice while this court considers the motions papers,' the new order reads. The appeals bench also set a briefing schedule through June 9 for the parties to lay out their arguments. The court will then rule whether to grant a longer pause. Trump has sought to impose tariffs on almost all U.S. trading partners since taking office, creating whiplash in financial markets as he repeatedly delayed or adjusted the announcements. Stocks opened higher Thursday in the wake of the tariffs being blocked and Nvidia reporting better-than-expected revenue. The lawsuits concern Trump's attempt to impose many of the tariffs by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), which authorizes the president to impose necessary economic sanctions during an emergency to combat an 'unusual and extraordinary threat.' Trump has attempted to leverage the law by pointing to trade deficits with other countries and an influx of fentanyl coming across the border. Democratic-led states and small businesses have filed a series of legal challenges, contending the statute provides Trump no unilateral authority to impose tariffs even if those are valid emergencies. Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel at Liberty Justice Center, which represents one group of plaintiffs, called the appeals court ruling a 'procedural step.''We are confident the Federal Circuit will ultimately deny the government's motion shortly thereafter, recognizing the irreparable harm these tariffs inflict on our clients. This harm includes the loss of critical suppliers and customers, forced and costly changes to established supply chains, and, most seriously, a direct threat to the very survival of these businesses,' Schwab said in a statement. On Wednesday night in the group's case, the U.S. Court of International Trade rejected Trump's efforts for the first time, permanently blocking his 'Liberation Day' tariffs and some imposed against China, Mexico and Canada. And on Thursday, a federal judge based in Washington, D.C., issued a similar ruling that remains intact. The administration has appealed that decision, too, but it heads to a separate court that has yet to rule. Neither case impacts some of Trump's other tariffs imposed under separate legal authorities, including those that target specific products, such as steel, aluminum and cars. Administration officials have blasted the judges who've blocked Trump's tariffs, accusing them of intruding on presidential authority. 'Three judges of the U.S. Court of International Trade disagreed and brazenly abused their judicial power to usurp the authority of President Trump to stop him from carrying out the mandate that the American people gave him,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a press briefing Thursday. —Updated at 3:57 p.m. EDT Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The 1977 law Trump is using to justify tariffs — and the court battle to stop him
A New York liquor importer and several other American small businesses made their case in court Tuesday as to why President Trump should not be able to carry out his "Liberation Day" tariffs, an early test of whether the legal battles over the president's trade war have any chance of halting the administration's plans. The forum for Tuesday's hearing was the US Court of International Trade, a New York-based federal court that handles trade-related lawsuits. A panel of three judges did not issue a ruling Tuesday but will evaluate whether the claims made by the small businesses justify temporarily or permanently blocking Trump's tariffs. The action from the small businesses is among at least seven lawsuits against the Trump administration challenging its authority to impose broad universal levies as well as more targeted measures that place taxes on items from specific countries or specific products. Other plaintiffs challenging the tariffs include a group of blue states and a Native American tribe. The authority being cited by the president and challenged by the small businesses Tuesday in federal court is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), which says that during a national emergency, the president, in order to respond to an 'unusual and extraordinary threat' from abroad, can regulate economic transactions, including imports. Congress passed the IEEPA to restrict presidents from overstepping a 1917 World War I-era law known as the Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA). The act, which regulates US transactions with enemy powers, allowed the president to exercise broad economic power during wartime and during national emergencies. The president cited IEEPA in an executive order issued Feb. 1 when he imposed tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada by declaring that an influx of illegal immigration and drugs into the country posed a national emergency. Trump also cited the law on April 2, so-called "Liberation Day," when he announced "reciprocal" tariffs on many countries around the world. The administration has since negotiated tariff suspensions with Canada and Mexico and paused the reciprocal duties for many countries. On Monday, President Trump announced that the US and China separately agreed to a 90-day pause on tariffs on each other's goods. The small businesses now challenging Trump before the US Court of International Trade argue that Congress never meant to extend monarch-like authority for US presidents to levy trade tariffs. "This is not what Congress intended," a lawyer for the small businesses, Jeffrey Schwab, said on Tuesday. He called Trump's April 2 tariff order an 'unprecedented and unlawful expansion of presidential authority' that would let Trump to slap tariffs 'on any country at any rate at any time simply by declaring a national emergency, without meaningful judicial review.' The Justice Department's lawyer Eric Hamilton argued that the court can't question how Trump determined what was an emergency. 'That is a political question,' he said, while also arguing that trade deficits over time do constitute a threat to the economy. The DOJ lawyer also cited what President Nixon did in the 1970s when he used an emergency law that preceded IEEPA to move forward with tariffs. That move eventually was held up in an appeals court after an initial defeat in a US Customs Court, the predecessor to today's Court of International Trade. "The question is, has [Trump] gone so far over the line here that the court should say just because you claim that there's an emergency, it doesn't mean that there is within the meaning of the statute? I don't have a good feel for what this court is likely to do," said Jonathan Entin, a constitutional law professor at Case Western Reserve University. To evaluate the plaintiffs' claims, a three-judge panel for the US trade court is expected to examine Trump's use of the IEEPA under the 'major questions doctrine' — a rule articulated by the US Supreme Court that applies high scrutiny to executive branch actions that raise national issues of 'vast economic and political significance.' Under the rule, judges presume that when a law does not explicitly grant executive authority, Congress may not have granted it. The Trump administration argued that the major questions doctrine — which the Supreme Court used to strike down an executive action from former President Joe Biden to issue $400 billion in student debt relief — does not stand in the way of his decision to impose sweeping import tariffs. "It's now going to be all that stands between the Trump administration's ability to impose very high tariffs," said constitutional law professor Seth Chandler of the University of Houston Law Center. The case could eventually reach the Supreme Court. Entin said the Supreme Court hasn't dealt with IEEPA very much but did so in Dames & Moore v. Regan, a 1981 case that upheld the president's authority under the act to suspend legal claims against Iran to help resolve the Iran hostage crisis. In the 1970s, in another case dealing with an act that preceded IEEPA, the US Customs Court initially sided with a Japanese zipper maker in ruling that neither the Tariff Act nor the Trade Expansion Act gave President Nixon authority to set a 10% tariff on foreign goods. Yet Nixon's tariffs were still allowed to stand after a successful appeal. "The court said, 'We don't want to get into this,'" Chandler explained. "We think the president can declare an emergency, and we ought to be very deferential to that." Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed. 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Fast Company
13-05-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
These 5 small business are suing Trump over his ‘Liberation Day' tariffs
Five American small businesses will ask a U.S. court on Tuesday to halt President Donald Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs, arguing the president overstepped his authority by declaring a national emergency to impose across-the-board taxes on imports from nations that sell more to the U.S. than they buy. Tuesday's hearing before a panel of three judges at the New York-based U.S. Court of International Trade will be the first major legal test of Trump's tariffs. The lawsuit was filed by the nonpartisan Liberty Justice Center on behalf of five small U.S. businesses that import goods from countries targeted by the tariffs. The companies, which range from a New York wine and spirits importer to a Virginia-based maker of educational kits and musical instruments, say the steep 'Liberation Day' tariffs that Trump imposed on April 2 are illegal and will hurt their ability to do business. Small businesses are being harmed by the threat of increased costs, as well as 'minute by minute changes' that prevent them from planning ahead, said Jeffrey Schwab, an attorney representing the plaintiffs. 'Our clients have no certainty on what the tariffs are going to be at any point, and that's exactly the problem,' Schwab said. 'One person shouldn't have unilateral authority to impose tariffs on every country at any rate, at any time that he wants.' The Liberty Justice Center's lawsuit is one of seven court challenges to Trump's tariff policies, and it is the first to seek a ruling that would stop the tariffs from moving forward. The Court of International Trade previously rejected the small businesses' request to temporarily pause the tariffs while their lawsuit went forward, but then quickly scheduled Tuesday's court hearing to decide whether to rule against the tariffs or impose a longer-term pause. Trump imposed the new tariffs on April 2, saying the U.S. trade deficit was a 'national emergency' that justified a 10% across-the-board tariff on all imports, with higher tariff rates for countries with which the U.S. has the largest trade deficits, particularly China. Many of those country-specific tariffs were paused a week later, and on Monday the Trump administration said it was also temporarily slashing the steepest China tariffs while working on a longer-term trade deal with Beijing. Both countries agreed over the weekend to cut tariffs on each other for at least 90 days. Trump's on-and-off-again tariffs have shocked U.S. markets, but he has justified them as a way to restore America's manufacturing capability. The president's executive order announcing the tariffs invoked laws including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives presidents special powers to combat unusual or extraordinary threats to the U.S. The Liberty Justice Center said the law does not give the president the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs 'on any country he chooses at any rate he chooses.' The law is meant to address 'unusual and extraordinary' threats, and the U.S.' decades-long practice of buying more goods than it exports does not qualify as an emergency that would trigger IEEPA, according to the lawsuit. The U.S. Department of Justice has argued that IEEPA gives presidents broad authority to regulate imports in response to a national emergency. It has said that the plaintiffs' lawsuit should be thrown out, because they have not been harmed by tariffs they have not yet paid, and because only Congress, and not private businesses, can challenge a national emergency declared by the President under IEEPA. The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump sued over ‘Liberation Day' tariffs
President Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs came under their first major legal challenge Monday, brought by a libertarian public-interest firm that argues the president overstepped his authority. Trump's April 2 announcement imposed a baseline 10 percent tariff on imports and targeted dozens of countries with higher 'reciprocal' tariffs. The announcement has rattled stock and bond markets, and Trump later announced the steeper tariffs would be reduced to 10 percent for 90 days to allow time for negotiations. Monday's lawsuit contests Trump's ability to impose the tariffs unilaterally by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The 1977 law provides the president with the authority to impose necessary economic sanctions to combat an 'unusual and extraordinary threat,' but no previous president has leveraged it to impose tariffs. 'Our system is not set up so that one person in the system can have the power to impose taxes across the world economy. That's not how our constitutional republic works,' Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel at Liberty Justice Center, which is leading the lawsuit, said in an interview. 'And so that is the thing that we're very concerned about. Because today it's tariffs, but could it be something else in the future,' Schwab continued. The Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian public-interest firm that regularly represents conservative causes, filed the lawsuit in partnership with Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School. They did so on behalf of a group of five small businesses impacted by the tariffs: wine and spirits company VOS Selections, sportfishing e-commerce business FishUSA, electric toy designer MicroKits, pipe maker Genova Pipe and women's cycling apparel brand Terry Precision Cycling. The suit was filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade, which has exclusive jurisdiction over certain lawsuits involving import transactions. Four members of the Blackfeet Nation previously sued over Trump's Canada tariffs, including the Canadian aspects of his April 2 announcement. But Monday's suit is far broader and challenges Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs across the globe. It adds to a lawsuit filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance earlier this month challenging some of Trump's additional tariffs imposed on China. 'If starting the biggest trade war since the Great Depression based on a law that doesn't even mention tariffs is not an unconstitutional usurpation of legislative power, I don't know what is,' Somin said in a statement. Updated 2:17 p.m. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
