{"id":154689,"date":"2026-03-05T23:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T23:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/154689\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T23:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T23:36:14","slug":"attorney-general-james-leads-lawsuit-to-stop-trump-administrations-latest-illegal-tariffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/154689\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorney General James Leads Lawsuit to Stop Trump Administration\u2019s Latest Illegal Tariffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2013 New York Attorney General Letitia James today led a coalition of 21 other attorneys general and the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania in suing to stop the latest attempt by the Trump administration to impose sweeping tariffs that result in increased taxes on states, businesses, and consumers<\/a>. Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Attorney General James and 11 other attorneys general<\/a> who sued to stop the president\u2019s illegal tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the president issued a new proclamation imposing tariffs on a range of countries and goods using Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. Attorney General James and the coalition argue in their lawsuit that these new tariffs are illegal because the president does not have the power to impose them. The tariffs do not meet the requirements of Section 122 and violate the Constitution\u2019s protection of the separation of powers. Attorney General James and the coalition are seeking a court order declaring the tariffs imposed under Section 122 unlawful and ordering the federal government to issue refunds to states for the tariff costs that they paid as a result of the president\u2019s proclamation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce again, President Trump is ignoring the law and the Constitution to effectively raise taxes on consumers and small businesses,\u201d said Attorney General James. \u201cAfter the Supreme Court rejected his first attempt to impose sweeping tariffs, the president is causing more economic chaos and expecting Americans to foot the bill. These tariffs will only drive up the cost of living, and I will continue to uphold the rule of law to protect New Yorkers.\u201d<\/p>\n

“The Trump administration\u2019s illegal and reckless tariff policies continue to weigh on the businesses, farmers, and consumers across New York State, hindering the state\u2019s overall economy,\u201d said Governor Hochul. \u201cIt is time the federal government refunds the $13.5 billion taken from hardworking New Yorkers and end the economic chaos that these unlawful taxes have created. I applaud Attorney General James for fighting for New Yorkers and look forward to continuing to work with her to put money back into the pockets of our families and workers.”<\/p>\n

No president has ever attempted to impose tariffs using Section 122. The law is specifically designed to allow limited tariffs to address certain monetary crises, including a significant \u201cbalance of payments\u201d deficit \u2013 a distinct economic problem that can occur in a fixed-rate exchange system like the gold standard. However, the U.S. abandoned such an exchange system half a century ago. As a result, balance of payments problems no longer occur. Attorney General James and the coalition assert in their lawsuit that the president\u2019s primary rationale for imposing these tariffs \u2013 the country\u2019s trade deficit \u2013 is not a legitimate reason for imposing tariffs under Section 122. In fact, the administration admitted during the lawsuit against the president\u2019s IEEPA tariffs that trade deficits \u201care conceptually distinct from balance of payments deficits.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, the president\u2019s tariffs violate other requirements in Section 122. The law requires new tariffs to be applied consistently in several ways, including that they are not applied discriminatorily. Yet the new tariffs exempt many goods from Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They also include 84 pages of specific product exceptions.<\/p>\n

Attorney General James and the coalition argue that the president\u2019s use of Section 122 is a clear attempt to escape the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in the case against the tariffs imposed under IEEPA. Like the previous \u201cemergency\u201d tariffs, the president invoked Section 122 to impose sweeping tariffs on a whim with hardly any stated reasoning. The proclamation first announcing the new tariffs was published on February 20, two days after the Supreme Court ruling. Attorney General James and the coalition argue that these sudden swings in tariff policy create significant costs for states, which must expend resources determining how these new costs will apply and how to handle soaring prices from vendors. The erratic swings in tariff rates have also created new administrative costs for states as agencies must piece together official policy from social media posts, executive orders, proclamations, and other sources.<\/p>\n

In their lawsuit, Attorney General James and the coalition argue that the tariffs violate the Constitution\u2019s separation of powers principle. Article I clearly gives Congress the power to tax and impose tariffs, and the president does not have the power to impose these kinds of sweeping tariff increases. The lawsuit seeks an order from the United States Court of International Trade declaring the Section 122 tariffs illegal and preventing them from being implemented, as well as an order to refund the states the costs of these tariffs while they were in effect.<\/p>\n

Joining Attorney General James in filing this lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 New York Attorney General Letitia James today led a coalition of 21 other attorneys general…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9810,9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-154689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-federal-initiatives","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}