CNN
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A group of US businesses filed a lawsuit Monday arguing that President Donald Trump’s tariffs are illegal under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
The suit was filed in the US Court of International Trade by the Liberty Justice Center, a legal advocacy group arguing on behalf of five businesses that it said have been “severely harmed” by the tariffs.
The IEEPA gives the president the authority to impose emergency economic powers in response to an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to national security or the economy, criteria that the plaintiffs in this case say has not been met. The complaint also alleges that the law does not allow for the president to unilaterally impose tariffs.
“No one person should have the power to impose taxes that have such vast global economic consequences,” Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, said in a statement. “The Constitution gives the power to set tax rates—including tariffs—to Congress, not the President.”
In a statement to CNN, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said that trade deficits with other countries constitute a “national emergency.”
“Never Trumpers will always oppose him, but President Trump is standing up for Main Street by putting an end to our trading partners—especially China—exploiting the U.S,” Fields said. “His plan levels the playing field for businesses and workers to address our country’s national emergency of chronic trade deficits.”
This isn’t the first legal challenge to Trump’s sweeping tariffs. On April 3, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), a civil rights group, filed a complaint arguing that the IEEPA does not allow a president to enact tariffs. The suit was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida on behalf of Simplified, a Florida-based company that sells planners with materials imported from China.
“By invoking emergency power to impose an across-the-board tariff on imports from China that the statute does not authorize, President Trump has misused that power, usurped Congress’s right to control tariffs, and upset the Constitution’s separation of powers,” Andrew Morris, senior litigation counsel at the NCLA, said in a statement announcing the Simplified suit.
