A conservative, pro-business nonprofit group is now taking President Donald Trump's administration to court, alleging that he is stepping outside the bounds of his authority to set new tariff rates.
The Daily Beast reported Monday that the libertarian-leaning Liberty Justice Center (LJC) is representing five small business owners in a lawsuit challenging Trump's use of emergency powers to bypass Congress and unilaterally impose tariffs on most of the world. The plaintiffs are arguing that Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1997 is unprecedented, as no prior president has used it to implement new trade duties.
"Our system is not set up so that one person in the system can have the power to impose taxes across the world economy," LJC senior counsel Jeffrey Schwab told The Hill. "That’s not how our constitutional republic works."
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"That is the thing we’re very concerned about," he continued. "Because today it’s tariffs, but could it be something else in the future."
In the lawsuit, plaintiffs say that Trump is improperly using the IEEPA to raise import taxes "immediately, with no notice, or public comment, or phase-in, or delay in implementation, despite massive economic impacts that are likely to do severe damage to the global economy." And they referred to his April tariffs as an "unprecedented power grab."
"His claimed emergency is a figment of his own imagination: trade deficits, which have persisted for decades without causing economic harm, are not an emergency,” the LJC's complaint reads. “Nor do these trade deficits constitute an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat.‘”
The businesses that filed the complaint with LJC's help include a New York-based liquor business that imports products from six different countries, a plastics company in Utah that depends on Asian imports for its raw materials, a fishing gear business in Pennsylvania, a musical instrument company in Virginia and a women's cycling apparel store in Vermont. They filed their complaint in the U.S. Court of International Trade.
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Click here to read the Beast's full article.