A dozen U.S. states are challenging President Donald Trump’s “immense and ever-changing” global tariffs in court, alleging he illegally bypassed Congress by issuing duties under an emergency economic law.
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Trump “has upended the constitutional order and brought chaos to the American economy,” the group, which includes New York, Illinois and Arizona, said in the complaint.
A spokesman for the White House criticized Democratic officials who filed the complaint for “prioritizing a witch hunt against President Trump over protecting the safety and wellbeing of their constituents.”
“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,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.
The suit follows a handful of others — filed by California, small businesses and members of the Blackfeet Nation tribe in Montana — that all make similar claims. It seeks a court order halting the tariffs, including the worldwide levies Trump paused on April 9. The states allege the tariffs amount to a massive tax on American consumers.
“The president does not have the power to raise taxes on a whim, but that’s exactly what President Trump has been doing with these tariffs,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “Donald Trump promised that he would lower prices and ease the cost of living, but these illegal tariffs will have the exact opposite effect on American families.”
The complaint takes aim at Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which the president invoked for “the most damaging of his tariffs,” according to the suit.
The states argue the law was passed five decades ago to prevent presidents from abusing emergency powers, and that it can only be invoked to respond to an “unusual and extraordinary threat.” Trade deficits and other issues cited by Trump don’t meet that standard, the states allege.
“The statutory requirement of an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ is not met by the president’s declaration of emergency accompanying the Worldwide Tariff Order,” the states said in the complaint. “As the Worldwide Tariff Order acknowledges, ‘annual U.S. goods trade deficits’ are ‘persistent’; thus, by definition, they are not ‘unusual and extraordinary.'”
The suit comes a day after Trump turned down his tariff rhetoric against China, the world’s second-biggest economy. Global markets are still on edge, however, given how frequently Trump has changed course on the matter.
The other states in the suit are Oregon, Colorado, Connecticut, New Mexico, Vermont, Nevada, Delaware, Minnesota and Maine.
The case is State of Oregon v. Trump, 1:25-cv-00077, US Court of International Trade (New York).
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