Latest news with #Leepa
Business Times
09-07-2025
- Business
- Business Times
Trump tariff ‘blank check' must be curbed, appeals court told
[NEW YORK] A group of small businesses that won an order finding US President Donald Trump's sweeping global tariffs illegal urged a federal appeals court to uphold that decision and block the trade levies. The US Court of International Trade ruled on May 28 that Trump exceeded his authority by imposing broad tariffs, a power granted to Congress in the Constitution. That decision was temporarily put on hold by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which will hear arguments on Jul 31 on whether to let it go into effect or extend the stay. The companies challenging the tariffs filed their brief in the Federal Circuit on Tuesday (Jul 8). 'The government's claim of unbounded power to set, reset, rescind, and reapply tariffs of any amount against any product, based on a unilateral and unreviewable emergency declaration, runs contrary to the plain text' of the law, the businesses said in their brief. The appeals court showdown comes as Trump's aggressive tariffs continue to roil global markets. The hearing will take place a day before Trump's newly announced Aug 1 deadline for tariffs go into effect, replacing his earlier Jul 9 date. He's insisted there will be no further extensions. At issue is Trump's interpretation of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or Ieepa, which says the president can 'regulate' certain foreign transactions during times of crisis. The president claims that persistent US trade deficits amount to a national emergency, allowing him to evoke the Ieepa, but the companies contend that the interpretation is overly broad. 'If such generic language authorised taxation, the president would have vast taxing powers that no president in US history has ever been understood to have,' the businesses said in their brief. 'Leepa is thus properly understood as a sanctions and embargo law, not a blank check for the president to rewrite tariff schedules.' BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up The companies, led by New York wine importer VOS Selections, also claim that the impact of the tariffs is so sweeping that the matter requires Congressional action under the 'major questions' doctrine. Arguing that Trump's tariffs will 'reshape' the US economy, the companies say they will face much higher costs and lower sales, with some of them likely to end up in bankruptcy. The administration filed its own brief in the appeals case last month, arguing that Congress had 'delegated' tariff authority to the president to bolster his ability to manage foreign affairs. It further claimed that blocking the tariffs would disrupt US diplomacy and jeopardise highly sensitive trade negotiations with other nations. But the companies said on Tuesday that Trump's back-and-forth threats on tariffs and the resulting uncertainty were evidence that he was misusing the emergency law. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. If the appeals court ultimately rules against Trump's tariffs, the Justice Department has said that it would ask the US Supreme Court to immediately intervene in the fight. BLOOMBERG
Business Times
25-05-2025
- Business
- Business Times
‘Little, little screws' one of many hurdles to US-made iPhones
[NEW YORK/WASHINGTON] President Donald Trump's bid to bring manufacturing of Apple's iPhone to the United States faces many legal and economic challenges, experts said on Friday (May 23), the least of which are the insertion of 'little screws' that would need to be automated. Trump threatened on Friday to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Apple for any iPhones sold, but not made, in the United States, as part of his administration's goal of re-shoring jobs. He told reporters later on Friday that the 25 per cent tariff would also apply to Samsung and other smartphone makers. He expects the tariffs to go into effect at the end of June. 'Otherwise it wouldn't be fair' if it did not apply to all imported smartphones, Trump said. 'I had an understanding with (Apple CEO) Tim (Cook) that he wouldn't be doing this. He said he's going to India to build plants. I said that's OK to go to India but you are not going to sell into here without tariffs.' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CBS last month that the work of 'millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones' would come to the United States and be automated, creating jobs for skilled trade workers such as mechanics and electricians. But he later told CNBC that Cook told him that doing so requires technology not yet available. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up 'He said, I need to have the robotic arms, right, do it at a scale and a precision that I could bring it here. And the day I see that available, it's coming here,' Lutnick said. The fastest way for the Trump administration to pressure Apple through tariffs would be to use the same legal mechanism behind punishing tariffs on a broad swath of imports, trade lawyers and professors said. The law, known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (Leepa), allows the president to take economic action after declaring an emergency that constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States. 'There's no clear legal authority that permits company-specific tariffs, but the Trump administration may try to shoehorn it under its emergency power authorities,' said Sally Stewart Laing, a partner at Akin Gump in Washington. Other means of levying company-specific tariffs rely on lengthy investigations, Laing said. But tariffs on only Apple 'would provide a competitive advantage for other important phones, which undermines Trump's goals of bringing manufacturing to the United States', Liang said. Experts said Trump has viewed Leepa as a flexible and powerful economic tool because it is not clear that courts have the power to review the president's response to a declared emergency. 'In the administration's view, as long as he enacts the ritual of declaring an emergency and pronouncing it unusual or extraordinary, there is nothing a court can do,' said Tim Meyer, an international law professor at Duke University. In a case brought by 12 states challenging Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs in the Manhattan-based Court of International Trade, the court is considering that issue, and whether Leepa authorises tariffs at all. If the Trump administration wins that case, 'the president is not going to have any trouble coming up with an emergency as a justification to impose tariffs on Apple iPhone imports', Meyer said. Trump could even simply include iPhones under the trade deficit emergency that already formed the basis for tariffs declared earlier, Meyer said. But moving production to the United States could take up to a decade and could result in iPhones costing US$3,500 each, Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, said in a research note. Apple's top-of-the-line iPhone currently retails for around US$1,200. 'We believe the concept of Apple producing iPhones in the US is a fairy tale that is not feasible,' Ives said. Even without getting that far, a tariff on iPhones would increase consumer costs by complicating Apple's supply chain and financing, said Brett House, an economics professor at Columbia. 'None of this is positive for American consumers,' he said. REUTERS
