Court battle over Trump trade policies creates 'new level of paralysis' for businesses: expert

29 May

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In a sweeping decision on Wednesday, May 28, the U.S. Court of International Trade in Manhattan blocked most of the tariffs that President Donald Trump is imposing on the United States' trading partners — saying that the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate trade.

A three-judge panel said, "The court does not pass upon the wisdom or likely effectiveness of the President's use of tariffs as leverage. That use is impermissible not because it is unwise or ineffective, but because (federal law) does not allow it."

The Trump Administration, however, is appealing the ruling and believes that federal courts are intruding on Trump's executive powers. And the matter may ultimately go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where one-third of the justices are Trump appointees.

CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin reacted to the Court of International Trade ruling during a Thursday, May 29 appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

Sorkin told "Morning Joe's" hosts — Never Trump conservative Joe Scarbough, a former GOP congressman, and liberal Mika Brzezinski — and their colleague Jonathan Lemire, "(Trump) is going to find and can find other ways to effectuate these tariffs if he so wants. I was talking to Michael Froman, who used to be the U.S. trade representative, and he said there are lots of different methods and mechanisms with which he could pursue this. Having said that, in terms of the context of 'The Art of the Deal' — how you're going to make deals with other countries — this clearly, at least in the short term, is going to give some new negotiating leverage not to the U.S., but to our trading partners. Right?"

Sorkin continued, "They're going to look at this and say: OK, you want a deal from us? Well, you have your courts that you're going to have to fight with for a while. We'd like a different kind of deal. In fact, you know, Europe, just 72 hours ago, said: Don't put the tariffs on us on June 1. We'll try to get there by July 9. Well, this has just been a gift to the EU in terms of how that negotiation could go. I'm sure there are some inside the UK this morning that are saying to themselves: We agreed early on we do this 10 percent tariff — maybe that wasn't such a great idea, in fact, because the courts are going to upend some of these things."

The CNBC host predicted that Trump's fight with the Court of International Trade will "draw all of this out…. in a much longer way" — and create "more uncertainty" in the business world.

Sorkin told Scarborough, Brzezinski and Lemire, "That uncertainty unto itself is also going to create a sort of new level of paralysis, I'm afraid to say, as investors and business leaders and others try to think through all the different implications of what happens next."

Watch the full video below or at this link.

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