{"id":186003,"date":"2025-08-30T01:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T01:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/186003\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T01:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T01:05:10","slug":"most-of-trumps-tariffs-declared-illegal-by-u-s-federal-appeals-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/186003\/","title":{"rendered":"Most of Trump\u2019s tariffs declared illegal by U.S. federal appeals court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new tariffs at the White House in April, 2025.Mark Schiefelbein\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

A U.S. appeals court has struck down the core of President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s tariff strategy, declaring that it is illegal for him to use emergency legislation to impose levies on nearly every country in the world, including Canada.<\/p>\n

The ruling, issued Friday by a Washington-based federal appeals court, puts into doubt the centrepiece of Mr. Trump\u2019s protectionist economic strategy and could undo informal trade deals he has cut with the European Union, Japan, South Korea and other countries.<\/p>\n

It covers the President\u2019s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose what he dubbed \u201creciprocal\u201d tariffs, including a \u201cbaseline\u201d 10-per-cent levy on nearly every country in the world as well as higher tariffs<\/a> on some.<\/p>\n

The ruling does not apply to Mr. Trump\u2019s tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and copper, which were imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act.<\/p>\n

The 7-4 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will not take effect until October and Mr. Trump immediately vowed to appeal, making it likely that the Supreme Court will have the final word.<\/p>\n

\u201cALL TARIFFS ARE STILL IN EFFECT!\u201d the President wrote on Truth Social. \u201cIf allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In Canada\u2019s case, Mr. Trump has imposed tariffs of 35 per cent on most goods not traded under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and 10 per cent on oil, gas and potash. Because roughly 90 per cent of Canadian exports to the U.S. are covered by the USMCA, the IEEPA tariffs have had less effect on Canada than the separate steel, aluminum and autos levies. <\/p>\n

The court, a majority of which was appointed by Democratic presidents, upheld a finding by the lower Court of International Trade that Mr. Trump is not allowed to use IEEPA to impose tariffs. The 1977 legislation, which was intended to let presidents impose economic sanctions on or freeze the assets of U.S. enemies during a war or other crisis, says nothing about tariffs.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump, however, argued that the U.S.\u2019s long-standing trade deficit constituted a crisis and imposed tariffs as the remedy. In the case of Canada, Mexico and China, the President argued that fentanyl coming into the U.S. \u2013 of which Canada was responsible for 0.2 per cent last year \u2013 was also a crisis justifying tariffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems unlikely that Congress intended, in enacting IEEPA, to depart from its past practice and grant the President unlimited authority to impose tariffs,\u201d the court wrote in its ruling. \u201cThe statute neither mentions tariffs (or any of its synonyms) nor has procedural safeguards that contain clear limits on the President\u2019s power to impose tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opinion: Canada must be ready to get its elbows up again to stand a chance in the post-Trump era<\/a><\/p>\n

The ruling held that \u201cIEEPA\u2019s grant of presidential authority to \u2018regulate\u2019 imports does not authorize the tariffs\u201d imposed by Mr. Trump, and that his actions \u201cexceed the authority\u201d delegated to him by the legislation. The judges ordered the lower court to consider in more detail to what extent, if any, the U.S. will now have to repay the billions of dollars collected on the tariffs. Importers on the U.S. side are footing the bill for the tariffs and passing much of the cost along to consumers.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump has imposed versions of the tariffs since April\u2019s \u201cLiberation Day,\u201d in which he used U.S. trade deficits with most countries to calculate their tariff rates. Several countries agreed to informal punitive trade deals in exchange for Mr. Trump somewhat reducing his tariffs.<\/p>\n

Under these handshake deals, other countries agreed to accept some combination of tariffs and import quotas, while promising to invest more in the U.S. and allow greater American access to their markets.<\/p>\n

Canada has so far held out for a better deal, causing Mr. Trump to hike non-USMCA duties from 25 per cent to 35 per cent after Ottawa missed his Aug. 1 deadline to reach an agreement.<\/p>\n

Tony Keller: Mark Carney had no choice but to go \u2018elbows down\u2019 \u2013 all our allies already have<\/a><\/p>\n

Lachlan Wolfers, national leader at KPMG Law, said the court\u2019s decision could potentially validate Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s decision to keep negotiating with Mr. Trump rather than signing a deal because the President may turn out not to have the authority to enter such an agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it comes down to is, the President\u2019s emergency powers are designed for emergencies,\u201d he said, adding that fentanyl from Canada \u201cis not an emergency, and tariffs are not an appropriate response to an emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Mr. Wolfers said, even without the IEEPA tariffs, \u201cthe same results could be achieved,\u201d either via an expansion of Section 232 tariffs or Mr. Trump seeking congressional approval for his levies.<\/p>\n

The Section 232 tariffs were imposed under a legislative provision specifically designed for setting import duties. The process for setting them, however, is more complicated and time-consuming, which appears to be why Mr. Trump tried to instead use IEEPA to set more sweeping tariffs not tied to specific sectors.<\/p>\n

No previous president, however, had tried to use IEEPA for this purpose. It was invoked by George W. Bush, for example, after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to freeze the assets of terrorist groups.<\/p>\n

Wolfgang Alschner, a University of Ottawa trade expert, said Mr. Trump might also try to use Section 338 of the 1930 Tariff Act \u2013 the legislation that enabled the Smoot-Hawley tariffs during the Great Depression \u2013 or Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which he has previously used to impose tariffs on China.<\/p>\n

More broadly, he said, the current case could force the Supreme Court to grapple with how Mr. Trump is trying to wield unilateral executive power. \u201cThe big constitutional question is on the table: What\u2019s the power of the presidency in relation to Congress?\u201d said Prof. Alschner, who is also the Hyman Soloway Chair in Business and Trade Law.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court has a 6 to 3 conservative majority, though traditional Republicans had tended to favour free trade before the Trump era. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new tariffs at…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":186004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2148,2138,671,104,2132,692,2147,2131,2143,2144,2140,2133,2130,79,407,746,2142,2137,2159,2134,2135,454,2139,1165,728,2149,108,2154,2155,50,2157,2152,2156,2150,2153,2136,85,2146,80,2145,2151,1458,158,1164,2141,1154,107,2158],"class_list":{"0":"post-186003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-canada-news","16":"tag-canada-sports","17":"tag-canada-sports-news","18":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","19":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","20":"tag-canadian-news","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-education","23":"tag-environment","24":"tag-federal-government","25":"tag-foreign-news","26":"tag-globe-and-mail","27":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","28":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","29":"tag-government","30":"tag-life-news","31":"tag-lifestyle","32":"tag-local-news","33":"tag-manitoba","34":"tag-national-news","35":"tag-new-brunswick","36":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","37":"tag-news","38":"tag-northwest-territories","39":"tag-nova-scotia","40":"tag-nunavut","41":"tag-ontario","42":"tag-pei","43":"tag-photos","44":"tag-political-news","45":"tag-political-opinion","46":"tag-politics","47":"tag-politics-news","48":"tag-quebec","49":"tag-sports-news","50":"tag-technology","51":"tag-travel","52":"tag-trudeau","53":"tag-us-news","54":"tag-world-news","55":"tag-yukon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}