"A court just claimed Trump lacks authority to set tariffs on trade, claiming it is a power of Congress.
However the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 gave the President authority to do exactly that."
Posted on 05/29/2025 5:52:02 AM PDT by Red Badger
Key Points
A U.S. trade court ruled that Trump had overstepped his authority by invoking an emergency law to impose sweeping tariffs on nearly every country.
Economists at Goldman Sachs said the White House likely has a few tools at its disposal to ensure it is only a temporary problem.
Lawyer James Ransdell said the ruling marks the first in many cases still pending — and is the first opinion “to really address the meat of the plaintiffs challenge.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump could still find a workaround after suffering a major blow to a core part of his economic agenda.
The U.S. Court of International Trade on Wednesday ruled that the president had overstepped his authority by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose sweeping tariffs on numerous countries.
The Manhattan-based court ordered a permanent halt to most of Trump’s tariffs and further barred their future modification. A panel of three judges gave the White House 10 days to complete the formal process of stopping the tariffs. The Trump administration swiftly appealed the ruling.
Goldman Sachs economists said the White House has a few tools at its disposal that could ensure the court ruling is only a temporary problem.
“This ruling represents a setback for the administration’s tariff plans and increases uncertainty but might not change the final outcome for most major US trading partners,” Goldman Sachs economists said in a research note.
“For now, we expect the Trump administration will find other ways to impose tariffs,” they added.
Options on the table
The Wall Street bank said the ruling blocks the 10% baseline tariff imposed by Trump on most imports, as well as the additional duties on China, Canada and Mexico – but not sectoral levies, such as those imposed on steel, aluminum and autos.
The Trump administration nevertheless has other legal means of imposing tariffs, Goldman says, flagging Section 122 of U.S. trade law, Section 301 investigations and Section 338 of the Trade Act of 1930.
Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 does not require a formal investigation and could therefore be one of the swiftest ways to get around the court roadblock.
“The administration could quickly replace the 10% across-the-board tariff with a similar tariff of up to 15% under Sec. 122,” analysts at Goldman said. They noted, however, that such a move would only last for up to 150 days after which law requires Congressional action.
Trump could also swiftly launch Section 301 investigations on key U.S. trading partners, laying the bureaucratic groundwork for tariffs — although Goldman said that this process will likely take several weeks at a minimum.
Section 232 tariffs, which are already in place for steel, aluminum and auto imports, could also be broadened to other sectors. This trade law allows the president to take action against threats to national security.
Section 338, meanwhile, allows the president to impose levies of up to 50% on imports from countries that discriminate against the U.S. Goldman noted that this particular measure has not been used before.
‘We have a little bit of a reprieve’ before new tariff rules can be implemented, trade lawyer says Michelle Schulz, founder and managing partner at Schulz Trade Law PLLC, echoed the possibility that the Trump administration would seek workarounds, including looking at ways the White House has imposed tariffs in the past.
“We have had section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods even under the previous administration, which were pretty harsh. So I can imagine that the administration will look at these provisions again and see if they can use 232, or 301, or some other mechanism where, whereby they can enforce the tariffs,” she told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday.
Schulz also pointed to the fact that such tariffs require investigations.
“I think that’s the difference here. All of the tariffs that we’re talking about today with IEEPA were issued under Executive Order and pretty much just by the executive branch,” she said. “When you look at these other sections, you’re going to have the involvement of the Commerce Department and other agencies investigating whether there really has been damage” to justify tariff action.
Schulz added that such investigations could take months.
What about the Supreme Court? James Ransdell, partner at the law firm Cassidy Levy Kent, said the court opinion marks the first of many other cases still pending — and the first substantive opinion out of federal court “to really address the meat of the plaintiffs challenge.”
Ransdell said the speed of the Trump administration’s appeal was “very unusual” and suggests the government could be working through the night to prepare its motion for an emergency stay of the order.
He added that it was “certainly a possibility” that the Supreme Court could end up having the last say.
“There is not a lot of precedent on this particular statute and on similar actions by the president, so there might be an interest that the Supreme Court has in taking this up,” Ransdell told CNBC’s “The China Connection” on Thursday.
Trump’s tariff appeal could trigger a constitutional showdown: Steven Blitz
Steven Blitz, chief U.S. economist at TS Lombard, said Trump had a “very good” level of understanding of how to play the courts to get what he wants in terms of playing for time.
“The first thing he will probably do is an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court … wanting to get a ruling from them that basically says you can keep these tariffs in place while the appeals process runs through,” Blitz said Thursday.
“This king-like executive order was always going to, at some point, going to run into the courts … The difference between being a monarchy and being a constitutional democracy is the legal system,” he added.
Stocks, U.S. dollar on the rise
Equity markets around the world broadly rose on Thursday as investors reacted to the legal ruling. Asia-Pacific markets ended the day mostly higher and U.S. futures jumped.
Market reaction in Europe was more muted, with the pan-European Stoxx 600 up a mere 0.3% by early afternoon London time. The euro was last seen trading at $1.1285, little changed for the session after paring earlier losses.
Jordan Rochester, head of FICC strategy at Mizuho EMEA, said in a note that the limited market reaction was “because Trump still has various options to raise tariffs.”
“Things are more complicated but the end goal for Trump remains the same. In politics when there is a will, there is a way,” he said.
The U.S. dollar rose slightly against major rivals, with the U.S. dollar index up 0.07%. So far this year, the dollar index has tumbled close to 8% amid continued market turmoil.
Trump proves every day how the democrats and other power obsessive comrades work to keep their presidium government in power.
Their biggest exposed case of it was the Biden administration operation.
Why would that federal court pinhead be against something that helps this country?
The answer is self-evident.
“...The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
― George Orwell, 1984
This Lawfare against the duly elected president is about volume rather than substance.
Its a complete bureaucratic assault on democracy. Probably foreign funded and definitely oligarchy.
The GOP must be getting paid by those same people. They haven’t lifted a finger to support Trump.
“It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?“
Winston thought. “By making him suffer”, he said.
“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy – everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed.”
― George Orwell, 1984
Just MORE useless liberal TRAITORS
President Trump could order Customs to hand search every single container coming in from the targeted countries without exception.
Back those ships all the way back to Hong Kong.
L
Brilliant idea; subjecting import cargo to an intensive search and review for every container is what the French did to products from China; the resulting slowdown worked wonders in changing China’s trade policy toward France.
Really?
That’s my position. The country pays an import tariff or its work to rule for you with a downsized work force.
"A court just claimed Trump lacks authority to set tariffs on trade, claiming it is a power of Congress.
However the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 gave the President authority to do exactly that."
Judges don’t like it when you quote laws to them..............
Agree it explains why the democrats always say Russia is our greatest threat but never China they confirm the way Xi and party operates.
All the power all the time no matter who or how many get hurt.
“So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern...Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.”
― George Orwell, 1984
Let me sum up the court’s ruling…. “20,000,000 invaders does not constituted an emergency”. Guess that means we needed 20 million and one to make an emergency?
Indeed
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