A three-judge panel on the Court of International Trade has declared several of Trump’s tariff-related executive orders to be “invalid, as contrary to law.”
“We do not read [the International Emergency Economic Powers Act] to delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President,” the judges write. “We instead read IEEPA’s provisions to impose meaningful limits on any such authority it confers.”
“The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariffs lack any identifiable limits,” they write. They say IEEPA’s limited authorities may be exercised only to “deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared … and may not be exercised for any other purpose.”
The decades-old International Emergency Economic Powers Act grants the president significant authority to regulate international commerce in response to national emergencies — but there are limits, the judges have ruled.
The ruling means any tariffs imposed as a result of several executive orders are not to be imposed.
The Trump administration can appeal. The appeal would go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, based in Washington.
The tariff orders that have been found to be invalid are Imposing Duties To Address the Flow of Illicit Drugs Across Our Northern Border, Imposing Duties To Address the Situation at Our Southern Border, Imposing Duties To Address the Synthetic Opioid Supply Chain in the People’s Republic of China and Regulating Imports with a Reciprocal Tariff to Rectify Trade Practices that Contribute to Large and Persistent Annual United States Goods Trade Deficits.
