{"id":39184,"date":"2025-08-01T11:05:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T11:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/39184\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T11:05:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T11:05:16","slug":"can-trump-impose-tariffs-without-congress-u-s-appeals-court-skeptical-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/39184\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Trump impose tariffs without Congress? U.S. appeals court skeptical – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Appellate court judges expressed broad skepticism Thursday over President Donald Trump\u2019s legal rationale for his most expansive round of tariffs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Members of the 11-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington appeared unconvinced by the Trump administration\u2019s insistence that the president could impose tariffs without congressional approval, and it hammered its invocation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cIEEPA doesn\u2019t even mention the word \u2018tariffs\u2019 anywhere,\u201d Circuit Judge Jimmie Reyna said, in a sign of the panel\u2019s incredulity to a government attorney\u2019s arguments.<\/p>\n

Brett Schumate, the attorney representing the Trump administration, acknowledged in the 99-minute hearing \u201cno president has ever read IEEPA this way\u201d but contended it was nonetheless lawful.<\/p>\n

The 1977 law, signed by President Jimmy Carter, allows the president to seize assets and block transactions during a national emergency. It was first used during the Iran hostage crisis and has since been invoked for a range of global unrest, from the 9\/11 attacks to the Syrian civil war.<\/p>\n

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Trump says the country\u2019s trade deficit is so serious that it likewise qualifies for the law\u2019s protection.<\/p>\n

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In sharp exchanges with Schumate, appellate judges questioned that contention, asking whether the law extended to tariffs at all and, if so, whether the levies matched the threat the administration identified.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf the president says there\u2019s a problem with our military readiness,\u201d Chief Circuit Judge Kimberly Moore posited, \u201cand he puts a 20% tax on coffee, that doesn\u2019t seem to necessarily deal with (it).\u201d<\/p>\n

Schumate said Congress\u2019 passage of IEEPA gave the president \u201cbroad and flexible\u201d power to respond to an emergency, but that \u201cthe president is not asking for unbounded authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

But an attorney for the plaintiffs, Neal Katyal, characterized Trump\u2019s maneuver as a \u201cbreathtaking\u201d power grab that amounted to saying \u201cthe president can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants so long as he declares an emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

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No ruling was issued from the bench. Regardless of what decision the judges\u2019 deliberations bring, the case is widely expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

In filings in the case, the Trump administration insists that \u201ca national emergency exists\u201d necessitating its trade policy. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade, a specialized federal court in New York, was unconvinced however, ruling in May that Trump exceeded his powers.<\/p>\n

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The issue now rests with the appeals judges.<\/p>\n

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The challenge strikes at just one batch of import taxes from an administration that has unleashed a bevy of them and could be poised to unveil more on Friday.<\/p>\n

The case centers on Trump\u2019s so-called \u201cLiberation Day\u201d tariffs of April 2 that imposed new levies on nearly every country. But it doesn\u2019t cover other tariffs, including those on foreign steel, aluminum and autos, nor ones imposed on China during Trump\u2019s first term, and continued by President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

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The case is one of at least seven lawsuits charging that Trump overstepped his authority through the use of tariffs on other nations. The plaintiffs include 12 U.S. states and five businesses, including a wine importer, a company selling pipes and plumbing goods, and a maker of fishing gear.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Constitution gives the Congress the authority to impose taxes \u2014 including tariffs \u2014 but lawmakers have gradually ceded power over trade policy to the White House.<\/p>\n

Trump has made the most of the power vacuum, raising the average U.S. tariff to more than 18%, the highest rate since 1934, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2025 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Appellate court judges expressed broad skepticism Thursday over President Donald Trump\u2019s legal rationale for his most expansive round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1376,43,44,4992,41,39,42,40,6825,24690,2845],"class_list":{"0":"post-39184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-tariffs","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-trump-tariffs","17":"tag-trump-trade-war","18":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}