A federal court ruled that Donald Trump overstepped his authority when he attempted to set unilateral 10% tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners.
The U.S. Court of International Trade said that the president’s emergency powers justification for the tariffs didn’t pass muster, in a ruling issued on Wednesday. The three-judge panel objected to the Trump administration’s argument that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act granted “unbounded tariff authority” to the executive branch. In their ruling, they called for a narrow reading of the act and the powers it grants.
“The President’s assertion of tariff-making authority in the instant case, unbounded as it is by any limitation in duration or scope, exceeds any tariff authority delegated to the President under IEEPA,” they wrote. “The Worldwide and Retaliatory tariffs are thus ultra vires and contrary to law.”
White House spokesperson Kush Desai bashed the ruling, saying that Trump should be able to use “every lever of executive power to address this crisis.”
“It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency,” he said.
The ruling is merely the latest judicial hindrance to Trump’s second-term agenda. The president lashed out at his foes in the judiciary on Memorial Day, calling them “USA-hating judges” in a post to Truth Social.
“HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS… AND THROUGH JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY,” he wrote. “HOPEFULLY THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, AND OTHER GOOD AND COMPASSIONATE JUDGES THROUGHOUT THE LAND, WILL SAVE US FROM THE DECISIONS OF THE MONSTERS WHO WANT OUR COUNTRY TO GO TO HELL.”
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