Court Strikes Down Trump’s Tariffs, “Ruling the Levies Exceed the President’s Legal Authority”
May 28th, 2025Update: Trump’s Tariffs to Remain in Effect After Appeals Court Grants Stay
Via: YahooFinance:
A federal appeals court allowed President Trump’s sweeping tariffs to temporarily stay in effect, a day after the US Court of International Trade blocked their implementation after deeming the method used to enact them “unlawful.”
That means Trump’s tariff agenda remains intact, if in flux, in the latest twist in the unfolding legal saga.
—
Maybe I need a new category: Chaos.
What’s next? More months of uncertainty and flip flopping as the Trump administration goes through appeals?
Via: CBS:
A federal court on Wednesday froze many of the large-scale tariffs imposed by President Trump on virtually every foreign nation, ruling the levies exceed the president’s legal authority.
The ruling — issued by a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of International Trade — halted the sweeping 10% tariffs Mr. Trump assessed on virtually every U.S. trading partner on “Liberation Day” last month, with higher tariffs threatened for dozens of countries. The court also blocked a separate set of tariffs imposed on China, Mexico and Canada by the Trump administration, which has cited drug trafficking and illegal immigration as its reasoning for the hikes.
The Trump administration has justified the tariffs by citing the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, or IEEPA, which gives the president the power to regulate imports during certain emergency situations. But the court on Wednesday rejected the government’s interpretation of the law, and said it would be unconstitutional for any law passed by Congress to give the president blanket authority to set tariffs.
“The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder,” the judges wrote Wednesday.
The court said Mr. Trump’s global 10% tariffs aren’t authorized by IEEPA because they’re designed to deal with trade imbalances between the U.S. and the rest of the world, which the judges said should fall under non-emergency legislation.
And the China, Canada and Mexico tariffs aren’t legal because they “do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders,” the court also found.
The three judges who wrote Wednesday’s ruling were nominated to the bench by former President Ronald Reagan, former President Barack Obama and Mr. Trump in his first term.
The Trump administration signaled in court papers it will appeal the ruling to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
I have to be honest, I was always pretty dubious about the constitutionality of Trump being able to impose all these tariffs by executive decree. That document was written so that the chief executive would not be able to rule as a king the way Trump seems to be trying to do these days.
In global economics, chaos seems regularly to be unleashed just after order receives a substantial increment.
“Fisher information”, a measure of order in the data, reached a peak in the US just before the 1929 crash.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844017313646
Basel agreements (prudential regulations for central banks) are typically taking place just before major crises.
After 2012 and pretty much until Covid, (recorded) world labor productivity gains showed an unprecedented stability, staying very close to 1 % annually.
If you can’t do what you want done, then just stop everybody else from doing anything but what you want done. If you’re the guy who decides what is legal and what isn’t, you win in the end. It’s slower than violence against the uncooperatives but it preempts violence against you. Or, it has so far.
Besides, who’s going to stand at your castle gate, waving his sword and yelling at you, when you’ve got archers crowding your battlements, all aiming at him, and tar pots ready to pour, and boulders ready to drop?