‘Upended the constitutional order’: Trump has ‘no authority’ to impose tariffs for ‘whatever reason he finds convenient,’ lawsuit says

A coalition of Democratic states are suing President Donald Trump over his controversial tariffs, arguing that he has “no authority to arbitrarily impose” such levies on Americans “as he has done here.”

The 38-page complaint, filed in the U. S. Court of International Trade, asserts that the president’s tariffs have created a U.S. national trade policy that “now hinges on the President’s whims rather than the sound exercise of his lawful authority.”

According to the plaintiff states, which include New York, Oregon, Arizona, Connecticut, and Illinois, Trump unlawfully imposed the tariffs under an emergency statute in the absence of any actual emergency — an argument reminiscent of challenges to Trump’s invocation of an 18th-century wartime power to conduct mass deportations with little or no due process, despite the fact that the U.S. is not at war.

“The text and history of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) — the statute the President has invoked for the most damaging of his tariffs — confirm that the President cannot impose such tariffs under that law,” the complaint states. “By claiming the authority to impose immense and ever-changing tariffs on whatever goods entering the United States he chooses, for whatever reason he finds convenient to declare an emergency, the President has upended the constitutional order and brought chaos to the American economy.”

As previously reported by Law&Crime, the IEEPA grants the executive sweeping authority to quickly combat international economic crises and permits the executive to order sanctions as a rapid response to international emergencies. The question is whether Trump’s current unilateral imposition of the levies constitutes an unlawful usurpation of the legislative branch’s control of the country’s purse strings.

The states are seeking a court order declaring Trump’s tariffs “unlawful” and therefore not in effect as well as an injunction preventing government agencies from enforcing the tariffs. It also challenges Trump’s plan for another round of tariffs to take effect on July 9, 2025.

The suit comes after California last week filed its own lawsuit seeking to halt Trump’s levies, claiming they have done irreparable damage the state’s finances.

“President Trump’s reckless tariffs have skyrocketed costs for consumers and unleashed economic chaos across the country. New York is standing up to fight back against the largest federal tax hike in American history,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement accompanying the suit. “Attorney General James and I are partnering on this litigation on behalf of New York consumers, because we can’t let President Trump push our country into a recession.”

Letitia James said the president was illegally raising U.S. taxes “on a whim,” which would inevitably lead to “more inflation, unemployment, and economic damage.”

A panel of judges on the Court of International Trade on Tuesday tersely rejected a request for a temporary restraining order on Trump’s tariffs sought by a coalition of businesses claiming the president’s policies amounted to “an unprecedented power grab” due to his gripe with trade deficits that were “a figment of his own imagination.” While litigation in that case will continue, the panel reasoned that the plaintiffs had not “clearly shown a likelihood that immediate and irreparable harm would occur before consideration of their Motion for Preliminary Injunction.”

The tariffs, which the president expanded several times throughout April, affect nearly every country in the world as Trump seeks to make good on his campaign promise to end bilateral trade deficits with U.S. trading partners. The measures have baffled economists, with many criticizing the president’s position on macroeconomic trade imbalances.

“It’s totally silly,” Dani Rodrik, an economist who studies globalization at Harvard University, told the New York Times earlier this month. “There’s no other way to say it, it makes no sense.”

In response to the latest lawsuit against the administration, White House spokesperson Kush Desai told CBS News that it was nothing more than Democratic attorneys general “prioritizing a witch hunt against President Trump.”

“The Trump Administration remains committed to using its full legal authority to confront the distinct national emergencies our country is currently facing — both the scourge of illegal migration and fentanyl flows across our border and the exploding annual U.S. goods trade deficit,” Desai said.

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