President Donald Trump is being met with pushback on his Chinese tariffs by a conservative legal group who claim they’re “unlawful” because they will push up prices for Americans.
According to Fox News, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) filed a complaint in a Florida district court Thursday, stating that Trump is unlawfully using emergency power to impose tariffs on all imports from China.
In a statement, Andrew Morris, senior litigation counsel at NCLA said Trump is misusing his power and is usurping Congress’ right to control tariffs.
“By invoking emergency power to impose an across-the-board tariff on imports from China that the statute does not authorize, President Trump has misused that power, usurped Congress’s right to control tariffs, and upset the Constitution’s separation of powers,” Morris said.
On February 1, Trump signed an executive order titled “Imposing Duties to Address the Synthetic Opioid Supply Chain in the People’s Republic of China.” This order was later revised on March 3, increasing tariffs on Chinese imports from 10% to 20%.
Emily Levy, owner of Pensacola, Florida-based company Simplified, said Trump invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose the tariffs is unlawful and noted that it would hurt her business.
John Vecchione, senior litigation counsel at NCLA, told Fox News Digital that “the key thing for all of this is that IEEPA does not provide for the tariff power, and you know that because when Congress does do it, they use the word, and they say how the president is supposed to do it.”
Vecchione highlights that the complaint outlines the different statutes Trump relied on during his first term to impose tariffs, asserting that, in this case, he is “applying the wrong statute.”
“Here, [Trump] declares an emergency, and then he says that his tariffs fit the emergency, that they’re necessary for the emergency,” Vecchione said. “IEEPA requires that they be necessary for the emergency, and they’re not.”
The complaint argues that the law permits the president to “order sanctions as a rapid response to international emergencies,” adding that it does not authorize him to “impose tariffs on the American people.”
“President Trump’s executive orders imposing a China tariff are, therefore, ultra vires and unconstitutional,” the complaint states, according to Fox News, adding that if Trump was granted such powers he would have “nearly unlimited authority to commandeer Congress’s power over tariffs.”
“He would be empowered to declare a national emergency based on some long-running national problem,” the complaint continues, “then impose tariffs purportedly in the name of that emergency – thus sidestepping the detailed constraints Congress has placed on the tariff authority it has granted.”
NCLA is asking the court to block the administration from implementing or enforcing the executive orders.
White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields told Fox News Digital, “President Trump has broad authority to impose tariffs to address issues of national emergency, such as the opioid pandemic. The Trump administration looks forward to victory in court.”
