The court said that Trump exceeded his authority, but that the tariffs will stay in place until a lower court determines how far-reaching the determination is.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on Friday, August 29, that the global tariffs President Donald Trump imposed under the rationale of national emergency were illegal. A full en banc hearing before 11 judges (the twelfth did not participate) ruled that “grant of presidential authority to ‘regulate’ imports does not authorize the tariffs imposed by the Executive Orders.”The Ruling
The 7-to-4 127-page decision addressed five executive orders in which the plaintiffs — five private companies and a dozen states — challenged Trump’s legal right to impose the tariffs in a lawsuit brought before the Court of International Trade, or CIT. The President had invoked a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.
The Court of Appeals said that after the declaration of a national emergency, the IEEPA says the President could “investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any . . . importation or exportation of . . . any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest.”
There are multiple other laws under which a president can impose or modify tariffs under “certain circumstances.” The judges found that the challenged executive orders were not authorized by the IEEPA. The court noted that the law doesn’t use such words as tariffs, duties, customs, taxes, or other words in contrast with other statutes where Congress “affirmatively granted such power and included clear limits on that power.
