U.S. trade court blocks Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs
發佈日期: 2025-05-29 19:43
TVB News
A U.S. trade court on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump's tariffs from going into effect.
A ruling by the three-judge panel on the Court of International Trade said Trump did not have the authority to impose sweeping levies on trading partners.
The judges ordered the Trump administration to issue new orders reflecting the permanent injunction within 10 days.
The administration has filed a notice of appeal and questioned the court's authority.
The bulk of Donald Trump's aggressive tariffs regime is based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.
The law is meant to be used for threats during a national emergency, which Trump declared soon after taking office to address U.S. trade deficits with other countries valued at more than 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars.
On April 2nd, he launched his "Liberation Day" tariff plan, hitting countries with increased levies on imported goods, particularly China. These were paused to make way for negotiations.
However, a U.S. trade court has blocked the taxes from going into effect, saying the IEEPA cannot be used to impose tariffs and that the president overstepped his authority.
A three-judge panel on the Court of International Trade said the U.S. Constitution gives Congress exclusive authority to regulate commerce and is not overridden by emergency powers.
This means the suspension of a 30 percent tariff on Chinese imports, along with levies on 100 countries.
However, the 25 percent tariffs on cars, auto parts, steel and aluminium remains.
The administration can appeal the Manhattan-based court's decision via the U.S. Court of Apeals and ultimately the Supreme Court.
The ruling was the result of two lawsuits -- one filed by the non-partisan Liberty Justice Center on behalf of five U.S. businesses, and the other by 12 U.S. states.
Before the court's decision, Trump denied that cutting tariffs on Chinese goods to 30 percent from 145 percent was a climbdown.
Trump said: "It's called negotiation. You set a number, and if you go down, you know, if I set a number at a ridiculous high number and I go down a little bit, you know, a little bit, they want me to hold that number."
The Justice Department, meanwhile, said the lawsuits should be dismissed because the plaintiffs have not been harmed by the tariffs.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai said the trade deficits are a national emergency that has decimated American communities, left workers behind and weakened the country's defence industrial base -- facts that the court did not dispute.
