A US trade court has blocked President Donald Trump from using emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs on imports.
The ruling on Wednesday, local time, by a three-judge panel at the New York-based Court of International Trade followed several lawsuits arguing that the president exceeded his authority, left US trade policy subject to his whims, and unleashed economic chaos.
“The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs,” the court wrote, referring to the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Stephen Miller, posted the news on social media, writing “the judicial coup is out of control”.
In a statement, the White House said it is “not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency”.
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The ruling faces certain appeal — and the Supreme Court will almost certainly be called upon to lend a final answer — but it casts a sharp blow on Mr Trump’s policy.
At least seven lawsuits are challenging the levies, the centrepiece of Mr Trump’s trade policy.
Tariffs must typically be approved by Congress, but Mr Trump says he has the power to act because the country’s trade deficits amount to a national emergency.
The plaintiffs argued that the emergency powers law does not authorise the use of tariffs, and even if it did, the trade deficit does not meet the law’s requirement that an emergency be triggered only by an “unusual and extraordinary threat”.
The US has run a trade deficit with the rest of the world for 49 consecutive years.
Global allies were plunged into uncertainty after Donald Trump announced the tariffs. (Reuters: Francis Mascarenhas)
Mr Trump imposed tariffs on most of the countries in the world in an effort to reverse America’s massive and longstanding trade deficits.
He earlier plastered levies on imports from Canada, China and Mexico to combat the illegal flow of immigrants and synthetic opioids across the US border.
His administration argues that courts approved then-president Richard Nixon’s emergency use of tariffs in 1971, and that only Congress, and not the courts, can determine the “political” question of whether the president’s rationale for declaring an emergency complies with the law.
Mr Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs shook global financial markets and led many economists to downgrade the outlook for US economic growth.
So far, though, the tariffs appear to have had little impact on the world’s largest economy.
The lawsuit was filed by a group of small businesses, including a wine importer, V.O.S. Selections, whose owner said the tariffs are having a major impact and his company may not survive.
A dozen states also filed suit, led by Oregon.
“This ruling reaffirms that our laws matter, and that trade decisions can’t be made on the president’s whim,” Attorney-General Dan Rayfield said.
AP
