A federal court decided that President Donald Trump has no power to impose a unilateral tariff, and is dealing with a comprehensive blow to the president’s main weapon in his continuous global trade war.
A committee of judges in the American International Trade Court found that the customs tariff was illegal and was permanently evacuated.
Since Trump announced an experimental tariff for more than 50 countries in April, his administration has faced half a scale of lawsuits that defy the president’s ability to impose a tariff without the approval of Congress.
The International Trade Court issued its decision in a case filed by a group of five small companies who argued that the Trump tariff was “the seizure of unprecedented power.”
President Donald Trump is speaking during the oath of the US temporary lawyer for Washington, DC, Janine Peru, at the White House Oval Office, May 28, 2025 in Washington.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Emose
Lawyers for small companies claimed that the Economic Forces Law in International Emergency-which required Trump to impose definitions-does not give the president the right to issue a “comprehensive global tariff”, and that Trump’s justification for the tariff was invalid.
“The alleged state of emergency is copies of his imagination.” “The trade deficit, which has lasted for decades without causing economic harm, is not an emergency.”
During a hearing earlier this month, a group of three judges – who were appointed by presidents Obama, Trump and Rigan – prompted a lawyer for small companies to provide a legal basis to overcome definitions. While a various courts in the 1970s decided that trading with the enemy law of 1917 – the law that preceded the Economic Forces Law of International Emergency – gave the president the right to impose definitions, and no court weighed whether the president could impose a unilateral tariff under EBA.
During a hearing on May 13, Jeffrey Shawab, the lawyer of the Conservative Freedom Justice Center, which represents the prosecutors, argued that the alleged state of Trump to justify the definitions is much lower than what is required under the law.
Shawab argued. “I say it is a wild stadium and it is on the other side of the mixture and hit the background, so we don’t need to discuss it.”
The ruling coincides with the first time that a federal court issued a ruling on the legitimacy of the Trump tariff. In May, a federal judge in Florida suggested his candidacy Trump that the president has the authority to impose a unilateral tariff, but he chose to transfer the case to the International Trade Court.
This is a developing story. Please check again for updates.
