First lawsuit against Trump’s tariffs argues he illegally used emergency powers

We pursued domestic manufacturing from the outset,

the entrepreneur said in an Instagram post

In the IEEPA’s almost 50-year history, no previous president has used it to impose tariffs. Which is not surprising, since the statute does not even mention tariffs, nor does it say anything else suggesting it authorizes presidents to tax American citizens,

the lawsuit notes

These unlawfully implemented tariffs cause harm to American businesses, American jobs, and American consumers, and will be the end of many American dreams,

Ley said in a post on social media the day after Trump announced a series of steep tariffs on nations around the word that sent global stock markets plunging

Congress passed the IEEPA to counter external emergencies, not to grant presidents a blank check to write domestic economic policy,

it states

IEEPA has a long list of things that the president can do and nowhere does it say ‘tariffs,

said Liza Goitein, senior director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute

As the suit explains, Congress did not give the President the authority to unilaterally enact tariffs that so profoundly affect the economy and Americans’ pocketbooks,

the RLC said

There is absolutely a basis on which to challenge the use of IEEPA for tariffs based on the Supreme Court’s own jurisprudence,

Goitein added

If this was ‘Red Dawn’ and the enemy was coming across the border and the president invoked IEEPA, he still can’t put in tariffs,

Vecchione said

It would appear that the new tariffs that were announced on Wednesday under IEEPA are the weakest link and the one most susceptible to a successful challenge,

said one industry representative, who was granted anonymity to discuss a matter still under consideration

One of the ways any normal person would know this, is it’s been around 50 years since the Iranian crisis. No one has ever imposed a tariff under it,

Vecchione added

Under current plans, the new tariffs will impose hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs on Simplified,

the lawsuit says

All options are being considered,

one of those people, a senior trade association executive, said

I think some in the profession are afraid. They’re just afraid, and their clients are afraid. They’re afraid of the administration,

he said

The key thing for all of this is that IEEPA does not provide for the tariff power, and you know that because when Congress does do it, they use the word, and they say how the president is supposed to do it,

John Vecchione, senior litigation counsel at NCLA, told Fox News Digital

He would be empowered to declare a national emergency based on some long-running national problem, ... then impose tariffs purportedly in the name of that emergency – thus sidestepping the detailed constraints Congress has placed on the tariff authority it has granted."

the complaint continues

Here, [Trump] declares an emergency, and then he says that his tariffs fit the emergency, that they're necessary for the emergency,

Vecchione said

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 NCLA, said in a statement released

President Trump has broad authority to impose tariffs to address issues of national emergency, such as the opioid pandemic. The Trump administration looks forward to victory in court."

In response to the lawsuit, White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields defended the executive orders, telling Fox News Digital

President Trump’s executive orders imposing a China tariff are, therefore, ultra vires and unconstitutional,

the complaint states

China played it wrong, they panicked – the one thing they cannot afford to do,

Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social