By Lindsay Whitehurst | Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A federal trade court on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs on imports under an emergency-powers law, swiftly throwing into doubt Trump’s signature set of economic policies that have rattled global financial markets, frustrated trade partners and raised broader fears about inflation intensifying and the economy slumping.
The ruling from a three-judge panel at the New York-based Court of International Trade came after several lawsuits arguing Trump has exceeded his authority and left U.S. trade policy dependent on his whims.
Trump has repeatedly said the tariffs would force manufacturers to bring back factory jobs to the U.S. and generate enough revenue to reduce federal budget deficits. He used the tariffs as a negotiating cudgel in hopes of forcing other nations to negotiate agreements that favored the U.S., suggesting he would simply set the rates himself if the terms were unsatisfactory.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai said that trade deficits are 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.”
The administration, he said, remains “committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness.”
But for now, Trump might not have the threat of import taxes to exact his will on the world economy as he had intended, since doing so would require congressional approval. What remains unclear is whether the White House will respond to the ruling by pausing all of its emergency power tariffs in the interim.
The ruling amounted to a categorical rejection of the legal underpinnings of some of Trump’s signature and most controversial actions of his four-month-old second term. 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.
“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.
While tariffs must typically be approved by Congress, Trump has said he has the power to act to address the trade deficits he calls a national emergency.
He is facing at least seven lawsuits challenging the levies. The plaintiffs argued that the emergency powers law does not authorize the use of tariffs, and even if it did, the trade deficit is not an emergency because the U.S. has run a trade deficit with the rest of the world for 49 consecutive years.
Trump imposed tariffs on most of the countries in the world in an effort to reverse America’s massive and long-standing trade deficits. He earlier plastered levies on imports from Canada, China and Mexico to combat the illegal flow of immigrants and the synthetic opioids across the U.S. 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.
Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs shook global financial markets and led many economists to downgrade the outlook for U.S. 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 has 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.
Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Paul Wiseman and Josh Boak contributed to this story.
