Court of International Trade

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Companies Ask Supreme Court to Fast-Track Challenge to Tariffs

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Two toy manufacturers asked the court to greatly expedite their case, in an unusual request.Two toy manufacturers challenging a major piece of President Trump’s tariffs program asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to expedite their case and rule that Congress had not authorized the levies.The request was unusual for several reasons. Petitions seeking review ordinarily come from the losing side, but the companies had won in front of a district court judge. They then sought to leapfrog the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which would ordinarily rule before the justices considered whether to grant review. And they asked the justices to move very quickly, asking that they schedule arguments in September or October.All of this suggests that the court is unlikely to agree to hear the case at this stage.The manufacturers — Learning Resources and hand2mind — argued that the law Mr. Trump relied on, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, does not authorize tariffs. Until Mr. Trump acted, their companies’ brief said, “no president had ever invoked I.E.E.P.A. to impose a single tariff or duty on goods in the statute’s nearly 50-year history.”In a separate and broader challenge, the Court of International Trade also ruled against the administration’s tariffs program. A different appeals court, the Federal Circuit, is set to hear arguments in that case next month. Both lower court rulings have been paused, allowing Mr. Trump to press forward with his tariffs.Once the appeals courts have ruled, appeals to the Supreme Court are all but certain, and the justices are quite likely to take up one or both of them.The toy companies seek to use an unusual procedure to bypass the D.C. Circuit, “certiorari before judgment.” The procedure used to be rare, mostly reserved for national crises like President Richard M. Nixon’s refusal to turn over tape recordings to a special prosecutor or President Harry S. Truman’s seizure of the steel industry.Before 2019, the court had not used it for 15 years, according to statistics compiled by Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University. Since then, he found, the court has used it at least 19 times. More

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    U.S. Court Agrees to Keep Trump Tariffs Intact as Appeal Gets Underway

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    The appeals court’s decision delivered an important but interim victory for the Trump administration.A federal appeals court agreed on Tuesday to allow President Trump to maintain many of his tariffs on China and other U.S. trading partners, extending a pause granted shortly after another panel of judges ruled in late May that the import taxes were illegal.The decision, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, delivered an important but interim victory for the Trump administration, which had warned that any interruption to its steep duties could undercut the president in talks around the world.But the government still must convince the judges that the president appropriately used a set of emergency powers when he put in place the centerpiece of his economic agenda earlier this year. The Trump administration has already signaled it is willing to fight that battle as far as the Supreme Court.The ruling came shortly after negotiators from the United States and China agreed to a framework intended to extend a trade truce between the two superpowers. The Trump administration had warned that those talks and others would have been jeopardized if the appeals court had not granted a fuller stay while arguments proceeded.At the heart of the legal wrangling is Mr. Trump’s novel interpretation of a 1970s law that he used to wage a global trade war on an expansive scale. No president before him had ever used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to impose tariffs, and the word itself is not even mentioned in the statute.But the law has formed the foundation of Mr. Trump’s campaign to reorient the global economic order. He has invoked its powers to sidestep Congress and impose huge taxes on most global imports, with the goal of raising revenue, bolstering domestic manufacturing and brokering more favorable trade deals with other countries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    As Courts Call Tariffs Into Question, Trump Again Turns to His Favorite Tool

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    The president is set to raise tariffs on steel and aluminum this week, even as the courts are challenging the legitimacy of other levies.The legitimacy of President Trump’s tariffs is being questioned by U.S. courts, but the president is showing no signs of backing off his favorite tool.On Wednesday, the tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed on foreign steel and aluminum are set to double to 50 percent, a move that the president has said will better protect domestic metal makers.In the coming days, the U.S. government is set to face off with states and businesses that have sued over the president’s tariffs, and both sides will be required to submit more information as judges work toward final decisions on the legality of Mr. Trump’s steepest tariffs.Last Wednesday, the Court of International Trade ruled that some of the steep tariffs that Mr. Trump had imposed were illegal, a significant setback for the president’s agenda.Less than 24 hours later, a separate court temporarily paused that decision. As judges weigh that appeal, the tariffs in question — which include the levies Mr. Trump imposed on Canada, Mexico and China for what he said was their role in the fentanyl trade, as well as the global tariffs Mr. Trump announced, and then quickly paused, in April — are expected to remain in effect at least until June 9.On Sunday, one of Mr. Trump’s top trade advisers insisted that the president would continue to find ways to hit other countries with tariffs even after the trade court ruled against the defining element of Mr. Trump’s strategy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Tariff Ruling Gives Businesses Hope, but They’re Soon Unmoored Again

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    Companies welcomed a court decision striking down President Trump’s tariffs. Then a stay of that ruling left no one breathing easy.Emma Mcilroy’s apparel company, Wildfang, had been working overtime to move its production out of China in the months since President Trump launched his trade war. Finding another factory that could produce jumpsuits and button-downs — while every other U.S. importer was also jockeying for space — was a huge drain on the 11-person staff’s attention.But when Ms. Mcilroy saw on Wednesday night that a federal court had ruled most of Mr. Trump’s tariffs illegal, all of that work paused. Would the tariffs be gone when her next shipment arrived in August, or not?“I have absolutely no idea where it’s going. I am learning in real time how to run my business,” Ms. Mcilroy said Thursday. “Yesterday I would’ve told you, ‘Yes, absolutely, you’re going to see me manufacturing stuff in Vietnam.’ Today I’m not sure.”American businesses are rapidly digesting the latest twist in Mr. Trump’s roller-coaster trade war, which has made it impossible to plan more than a few weeks in advance. It’s particularly hard on industries that place their orders entire seasons ahead of time.The details of Wednesday’s decision seemed likely to bring relief. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that the Trump administration had acted illegally in using an emergency powers law to impose 30 percent tariffs on goods from China, 25 percent tariffs on most goods from Mexico and Canada, and 10 percent on everyone else. The court gave the White House 10 days to halt the new duties.Hours later, a higher court stayed the decision.If the initial ruling sticks, it will preclude the return of steeper “reciprocal” tariffs that Mr. Trump paused for 90 days in early April. It might even allow companies that have paid the emergency tariffs over the past several months to claim refunds, already an established process at Customs and Border Protection.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More