April 15 (UPI) — A group of American companies filed a lawsuit that argues the Trump administration doesn’t have the authority to issue unfettered tariffs without congressional approval.
The nonprofit Liberty Justice Center filed the suit Monday in the U.S. Court of International Trade on behalf of five businesses that each claim the tariffs directly threaten their finances, and in some cases their existence.
The suit challenges both the global 10% tariffs enacted by President Donald Trump on nearly all imports and the additional higher tariffs that target several countries based on estimations of foreign trade imbalances.
“The president invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify the ‘Liberation Day tariffs, as well as tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China,” LJC said in a press release. “But under that law, the president may invoke emergency economic powers only after declaring a national emergency in response to an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat to national security, foreign policy or the U.S. economy originating outside of the United States.”
The lawsuit purports that Trump’s justification that the tariffs are needed to address “a trade deficit in goods” is “neither an emergency nor an unusual or extraordinary threat,” and that trade deficits have existed for decades, therefore they don’t equal a “national emergency or threat to security.”
The suit also contends that Trump “imposed tariffs even on countries with which the U.S. does not have a trade deficit,” a fact the LJS considers to further disprove the administration’s reasoning.
“No one person should have the power to impose taxes that have such vast global economic consequences,” Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center Jeffrey Schwab said. “The Constitution gives the power to set tax rates, including tariffs, to Congress, not the President.”
White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told CNN in a statement in response to the lawsuit that Trump’s plan “levels the playing field for businesses and workers to address our country’s national emergency of chronic trade deficits.”
This lawsuit follows an earlier complaint filed on behalf of a private company earlier in April by the nonprofit New Civil Liberties Alliance, which also alleges that IEEPA doesn’t authorize the President to impose levies as he has.