Liberation Day Tariffs struck down by Federal Trade Court

May 28, 2025 By Joe | | Heads up: Buying via our links results in us getting a commission, which helps keep the lights on around here. We also take your privacy rights seriously. Head here to learn more.

The President’s wide-ranging tariffs have been blocked by the Court of International Trade, which while obscure, is a Congressionally created court with nationwide jurisdiction over tariff and trade disputes.

The three judge panel ruled the President and his administration:

1. Overstepped their legal authority. (Fox Business)
2. Over-stated the threat of trade deficits which were used as rationalization for the so-called reciprocal tariffs. (WSJ)
3. The tariffs imposed due to the fentanyl crisis on Canada, Mexico, and China didn’t actually deal with that threat. (pg. 36 of the ruling).

Implementing tariffs usually requires Congress, but the Executive Branch has been arguing that as the President declared a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act, he therefore is granted broad powers to enact tariffs due to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which says a President would have power to “deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.”

In their ruling, the three judge panel said:

• “The question in the two cases before the court is whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (“IEEPA”) delegates these powers to the President in the form of authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world.”
• “We do not read IEEPA to delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President. We instead read IEEPA’s provisions to impose meaningful limits on any such authority it confers.”
• “The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs.”
• “The Trafficking Tariffs fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders.”

The court ruled in favor of a permanent injunction and gave 10 calendar days for administrative orders “to effectuate the permanent injunction.” (CNN)

The Administration said they’ll file an appeal immediately.

Congress created the Court of International Trade in 1980 as a successor to the U.S. Customs Court. They’re like any other district court in the United States, which means this very well could go all the way up to the Supreme Court.

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