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Trump’s Tariffs Have Been Declared Illegal. Beware the Wounded Animal
How Will the Beast React?
A three-judge panel has upended Donald Trump’s world, doing the one thing he hates most: they made him look stupid. The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that Trump overstepped his authority when he invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to declare a national emergency and justify his sweeping tariffs. His tariffs, against virtually the entire planet, including uninhabited islands, were deemed to have exceeded his authority. The Court’s decision blocks the tariffs that Trump imposed last month on almost all U.S. trading partners, as well as the levies he had previously imposed on China, Mexico, and Canada.
Trump claimed the extraordinary power to act without congressional approval, justifying the taxes under IEEPA by declaring the United States’ longstanding trade deficits “a national emergency.” On April 2, Trump imposed so-called reciprocal tariffs of up to 50% on countries with which the United States runs a trade deficit and 10% baseline tariffs on almost all other countries. He later suspended the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days to give countries time to agree to reduce barriers to U.S. exports. But he kept the baseline tariffs in place.
