Federal Court Rules Trumps Tariffs are Illegal

 

BY C STONE | STONE NEWS NETWORKS 

Updated 5/28/2025

** The federal court of appeals have re-instated the tariffs, as reported by other news agencies.

Via CNBC:

A federal appeals court granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily pause a lower-court ruling that struck down most of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The administration had told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that it might seek “emergency relief” from the Supreme Court.

Trump officials including Peter Navarro and Stephen Miller heaped criticism on the trade court judges following their ruling.

Yesterday a federal court froze most of the tariffs President Trump put in place over the past few months. The court deemed them illegal, and an overreach of authority that the president did not have.

This cancellation halted the 10% tariffs that Trump assessed on virtually every trading partner with the United States, even those like Canada and Mexico with free trade agreements.

The court blocked a set of tariffs applied to China, Mexico, and Canada by the Trump administration. Citing 'high drug trafficking and illegal immigration' as the reason for the hikes. 

From CBS News:

"It's great to see that the court unanimously ruled against this massive power grab by the President. The ruling emphasizes that he was wrong to claim a virtually unlimited power to impose tariffs, that IEEPA law doesn't grant any such boundless authority, and that it would be unconstitutional if it did." Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University involved in one of the lawsuits before the U.S. Court of International Trade, said in a statement.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras found that the law "does not authorize the president to impose the tariffs set forth" in five of his orders and barred the Trump administration from collecting any tariff deriving from them from the plaintiffs in the case, two family-owned businesses based in Illinois. The judge paused his order for 14 days to give the Justice Department time to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The world watches and waits for the next steps.