WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump’s consistent campaign promise to impose broad tariffs on U.S. imports is likely to face tough challenges in court and potentially push back from Congress.
Companies from sports companies to high-tech startups are ramping up plans to oppose Trump’s proposals. offer Imposing tariffs of up to 20% on all goods imported into the US, and an additional 60% on goods from China.
Industry groups are filing legal challenges and lobbying Congress to pass legislation to limit the president’s authority over tariffs, while their members send up to to the US as much as they can before Trump enters the White House.
Although he has said he would impose the increases unilaterally, there are potential legal limits to Trump’s authority. Under the Constitution, Congress has the power comes into force rates. But through various legislation over the years, Congress has delegated much of this power to the president for national security purposes, to use tariffs in emergency situations, or to combat unfair trade practices of another country. This has allowed past presidents, including Trump in his first term, to levy higher tariffs on a range of products from specific countries.
During his first term, Trump faced little resistance from the courts and Congress for his tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from some countries and thousands of products from China. But Trump’s latest proposal would be broader, covering every product from every country and raising more pressing questions about whether it oversteps the authority given to him by Congress, according to lawyers and business groups.
Some legal experts predict that the conservative majority Supreme Court, which has repeatedly ruled against President Joe Biden on the broad use of executive power without congressional approval, may accept arguments that Trump is going too far.
“The really important question is whether Congress can simply hand over the running of the government to the president,” said George Washington University Law School professor Alan Morrison, who has been involved in litigation against Trump’s previous steel tariffs.
New legal challenges are certain and will be brought by “anyone who imports anything,” Morrison said, adding that the only thing stopping such lawsuits is his reluctance to upset Trump, who is widely known as a “vengeful man.”
‘Anothing but inflation’
During the campaign, Trump made the tariffs the centerpiece of his plan to revive the American economy, arguing that imposing significant tariffs on imports would encourage companies to move their manufacturing plants to the United States and protect industries from cheaper overseas competition. Tariffs are paid to the federal government by a company that imports a product from abroad either to sell that product directly to consumers or to use it as a component in another product that is assembled in the United States.
“To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff, and it’s my favorite word,” Trump said he said at the Economic Club of Chicago in October. “It needs a public relations firm to help, but to me it’s the coolest word in the dictionary.”
But economists and businesses have warned that the tariffs will do little to bring manufacturing back to the United States because of the costs, logistics, regulatory hurdles and labor shortages that many industries would face in moving production stateside.
Instead, in the past, companies have largely passed the cost of tariffs on to consumers in the form of higher prices or absorbed costs, reducing profits. to learn By the National Bureau of Economic Research.
In 2018, Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum led to a decline in manufacturing employment in the United States due to increased costs for companies that use steel and aluminum in their products. to learn by the Federal Reserve Board.
“If the former president’s campaign-proposed tariffs go into effect, we think it will have an inflationary effect,” said Ed Brzytva, vice president of international trade at the Consumer Technology Association. “Consumers have voted in an election that simply shows they don’t like inflation over the last four years, and we don’t want another wave of inflation here in the United States.”
Tablets, smartphones and video game consoles are among the tech products most likely to be affected by the proposed tariffs, Brzytwa said.
The CTA and other industry groups have said they are preparing to mount legal challenges to the proposed tariffs and are pushing Congress to act on legislation to limit the president’s authority when it comes to tariffs, such as a bill introduced by Sen. Rand Paul in September. Ky., which would require congressional approval for almost all tariffs.
While Trump has said he has the authority to impose tariffs without Congress, something he did in his first term, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., suggested he would likely take action from Congress, including support from Democrats. with a rate offer.
“Tariffs will probably require 60 [votes] Unless there’s a way we can get it through reconciliation with 51,” Scott said. interview on Fox News on Sunday. Republicans currently hold 52 Seats in the Senate.
But outside of Congressional action, the fight against tariffs will likely fall to the judiciary. Expert Petros Mavroidis said that the courts have given the president enough freedom to impose tariffs for national security reasons, leaving it more up to the president to decide whether a particular country or product poses a risk to the country’s defense. in international trade from Columbia Law School.
‘I’m ready to apply’
During his first term in office, Trump used his national security credentials to impose tariffs on close ally Canada justification before granting concessions to the country. But the wide range of tariffs for allies “could cross the line,” he added, especially since the Supreme Court has taken a generally pro-business stance in recent years.
“My bottom line is that all the legislation that gives the president tariff authority is about product-specific action against a country,” said Jennifer Hillman, a professor at Georgetown Law Center who also specializes in international trade law.
Hillman added that it would be “really problematic” if the Trump administration strayed further from what Congress specifically authorized to give the president authority over tariffs.
During the Biden administration, the Supreme Court adopted a theory called the “fundamental questions doctrine.” Biden’s ambitious plan to wipe out billions of dollars in student debt was one of the proposals the Supreme Court faulted.
In fact, lawyers who challenged Trump’s tariffs on goods from China and lost in the Court of International Trade — before the Supreme Court’s recent decisions expanding the fundamental questions doctrine — are now making those arguments on appeal.
“This is a classic example of a ‘fundamental questions’ case,” the lawyers wrote in a recent filing.
They argue that the provision in the Trade Act that allows changes to existing tariffs was not intended as a tool for the government to massively increase those tariffs.
That same provision, Section 307, is “one of the most obvious ways Trump has followed through on his threat to raise additional tariffs on China,” said one of the lawyers involved in the litigation. “It’s one that’s completely sensitive because of the fundamental questions doctrine.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has yet to hear oral arguments in the case, but its ruling could affect Trump’s new plans and bring the issue to the Supreme Court.
Conservative justices are also sympathetic to the so-called “delegation doctrine,” which states that there are limits on how much of Congress’s core powers can delegate to the executive branch.
The court ruled in 2019 not to adopt a version of the doctrine that challenged the law, which gave the attorney general significant powers to implement a federal sex offender registry. There is now one more opportunity to settle the matter in court. It involves legal challenges to the role of the Federal Communications Commission in imposing fees on telephone users used to expand access to telecommunications services.
In the first Trump administration, the theory was floated by groups challenging the steel tariffs, but it didn’t gain traction. The Supreme Court refused to consider the issue.
One challenge for potential challengers is a 1976 Supreme Court precedent Federal Power Administration v. Algonquinsaid that one of the main provisions allowing the president to impose tariffs – Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act – did not raise any delegation issues.
But Hillman said that with the court’s current 6-3 conservative majority, there may be appetite to revisit those and related questions.
“There is a sense that the time is ripe to challenge the president’s authority to do these things under these laws,” he said.
Despite the legal grounds groups may have to challenge the tariffs, any action in the courts could take years to resolve, and companies would have to pay the tariffs pending a decision. At this time there were companies rises their import shipments to try to get as much product into the US as possible before any potential tariffs take effect.
“I think people will look at every possible solution, and I think both sides have ideas about how promising a legal approach would be, but certainly not in the near term,” said an industry official who deals with trade policy. “I don’t see much hope or promise for any action in the immediate or near term.”
When Trump imposed a 7.5% tariff on millions of shoes coming to the US from China in 2019, American Shoe Distributors and Retailers sued, claiming the shoes were outside the scope of an initial investigation into China’s unfair trade practices. The case is still going through the court.
This time, the group is focused on working with the incoming administration to exclude its products from future tariffs, arguing that shoe imports from China pose no national security risk and that shoe manufacturing is unlikely to return. Matt Priest, CEO of the trading group, said the U.S. because of the lack of materials, supply chain and labor here.
“We will continue to participate in the legal process regarding any action,” Priest said. “But our expectations are pretty low because it’s about finding some relief through the courts.”