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US Court Blocks Trump’s Sweeping Tariffs

A federal court on Wednesday blocked many of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff executive orders, saying the president overstepped his use of emergency powers to enact them.

The United States Court of International Trade issued an injunction on four executive orders that called upon various national emergencies to enact tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico, and a 10% global tariff plus additional reciprocal tariffs. The injunction called for the government to stop any operations related to those tariff orders, and to issue administrative notices on the permanent injunction within 10 days.

Lawyers representing the Trump administration quickly appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., and have  supporting their case.

The injunction came as the result of several legal cases wherein a few small businesses and several U.S. states filed separate but similar petitions to halt the tariffs, arguing their imposition via the International Emergency Economic Powers Act overstepped presidential powers. The court eventually sided with the plaintiffs and ruled it was appropriate to block the executive orders that imposed the tariffs as a result.

“The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs,” the court panel’s opinion reads. “The Trafficking Tariffs fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders.”

Beyond broad tariffs on trading partners, Trump also used the IEEPA as the basis to eliminate the de minimis exemption for imports from China and Hong Kong. The White House plans to end de minimis treatment for other countries’ products under the act, once systems are in place to collect the additional duties. Those changes are now in question, too, as a result of the court’s decision to halt the executive orders that enabled them.

However, tariffs on automobiles, auto parts, steel and aluminum products were not affected by the injunction, as they were implemented under a different trade authority: Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. Similarly, any tariffs implemented under Section 301 will remain in place.