Court of International Trade Strikes Down Trump’s Liberation Day Tariffs

This is an enormous ruling. 5 Reasons the court is correct.

Court Strikes Down Trump’s Reciprocal Tariffs

I am 100% pleased to report Trade Court Strikes Down Trump’s Global Tariffs

A federal trade court ruled President Trump didn’t have the authority to impose sweeping tariffs on virtually every nation, voiding the levies that have sparked a global trade war and threatened to upend the world economy.

The decision on Wednesday from the Court of International Trade blocked one of the Trump administration’s most audacious assertions of executive power, under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. Shortly after the decision was handed down, lawyers for the Trump administration notified the court they will appeal.

“The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder,” a three-judge panel wrote.

Congress typically holds responsibility over tariffs but has delegated many powers to the president over decades. When he imposed the levies in April, Trump said the ongoing U.S. trade deficit had created a national emergency that has hobbled the economy and posed an unusual and extraordinary threat.

Wednesday’s ruling said it would be unconstitutional for Congress to delegate “unbounded tariff power” to the president. “An unlimited delegation of tariff authority would constitute an improper abdication of legislative power to another branch of government,” the court said. Congress placed limits in IEEPA, restricting when and how a president could place levies, the ruling said.

The panel also said the U.S. trade deficit didn’t fit the law’s definition of an unusual and extraordinary threat.

If upheld, the ruling means the Trump administration must find another justification for its global tariffs. The administration has previously contemplated imposing duties under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows for tariffs that counter unfair foreign trade practices. That is the provision Trump used to underpin his first term tariffs on China and is considered to be on firmer legal footing than IEEPA.

The “Liberation Day” tariffs placed 10% levies on every nation. Trump imposed even higher rates on many countries he deemed “bad actors,” but later announced a 90-day pause on those duties. Trump ratcheted up tariffs on China to as high as 145% and then lowered them again to 30%.

Brian Marshall, a lawyer for the Oregon attorney general’s office, said at a hearing for the states’ case that Trump’s tariffs were unprecedented and untenable.

“The government argues that so long as the president says he’s confronting an unusual and extraordinary threat that he can set tariffs of any amount from any country for any length of time, and no court may review it,” Marshall said during the hearing. “That’s a position that no court has ever embraced and, until this year, power no president has ever asserted.”

Justice Department attorney Brett Shumate conceded at one of the hearings that the court has the power to decide whether the language in IEEPA grants the president the authority to impose tariffs. 

“It is not for the role of the court to decide whether the president has appropriately used that authority,” Shumate said. Whether a true emergency existed is a political question for the executive and legislative branches to decide. EEPA includes checks that allow Congress—not a judge—to review the president’s conclusions and actions, he said.

The judges were skeptical of Trump’s unilateral actions. During one hearing, Judge Janet Restani posed a question of whether that meant the president could declare an emergency over a national shortage of peanut butter, an inconvenience to some but not necessarily a crisis. 

“Peanut butter becomes a political question,” she said. 

Jeffrey Schwab, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the V.O.S. case, said the court has the power to review the legitimacy of Trump’s tariffs. He acknowledged a court at times might have difficulty determining what is and isn’t a national emergency, but not in this matter. “This case is so far outside of what an emergency is and what is unusual and extraordinary,” he said.

National security tariffs imposed on products like steel and aluminum, as well as similar duties planned on sectors like lumber and semiconductors, are justified under a different law and wouldn’t be affected by the ruling.

The Constitutional Case

Please note “Justice Department attorney Brett Shumate conceded at one of the hearings that the court has the power to decide whether the language in IEEPA grants the president the authority to impose tariffs.” 

Oops. The word tariff is not even in the act. Nor are synonyms like duties.

Second, there is no emergency. An emergency is a sudden unexpected crisis. Trade deficits have existed for decades.

Third, there is no unusual or extraordinary threat. Trump has even imposed tariffs on nations with which we have no trade deficit including islands inhabited only by penguins.

Fourth, there is lack of a clear authorization by Congress to grant Trump such authority. The applicable principle involved is called “major question”.

The Tax foundation estimates the cost of Trump’s tariffs to be over $2 trillion. If that’s not a “major question” then what is?

This is a similar to the setup in which Biden attempted to suspend student loans that would also have an impact of $400 billion.

Trump seeks a bigger than any previous Supreme Court “major question” ruling including student loans.

Finally, we get to the issue of delegation. The Supreme Court has ruled that Congress has no authority to simply giving away its constitutional rights.

Thank You Court!

Hooray! Massive cheers for the court in blocking Trump’s tariffs.

Thank you court for a logical ruling.

Trump was begging for this ruling with nonsense like declaring movies a national security threat.

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May 4, 2025: Movies Are Now a National Security Threat, 100 Percent Tariffs Announced

Trump: “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick posting on X said: “We’re on it.”

May 20, 2025: Hoot of the Day: Trump Threatens a Return to Reciprocal Tariffs

We’ve gone from 200 deals “100%” to threats of returning to reciprocal tariffs if countries don’t deal.

It’s pretty damn hard to claim “emergency” when you turn tariffs on and off repeatedly for months then make idiotic claims like movies are a national security threat.

Case closed. The constitution case I presented above is rock solid.

The irony is Trump wanted the Court of International Trade to decide this issue because it had Trump-appointed judges.

Wish granted!