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The White House has vowed to fight a court ruling that Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariff scheme is illegal, accusing the panel of judges of “judicial over-reach” and insisting the US president will “implement his America First trade policies”.
The US Court of International Trade ruled late on Wednesday that Trump did not have the authority to use the emergency economic powers legislation that he cited when he imposed sweeping global tariffs last month.
The administration moved quickly to appeal against the ruling, threatening to go to the Supreme Court if necessary to try and overturn the trade court’s decision, which White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described as “another example of judicial over-reach”.
“Three judges of the US Court of International Trade . . . brazenly abused their judicial power to usurp the authority of President Trump, to stop him from carrying out the mandate that the American people gave him,” Leavitt told reporters on Thursday afternoon.
“Ultimately the Supreme Court must put an end to this, for the sake of our constitution and our country.”
The Department of Justice earlier on Thursday asked the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington to put a stay, or hold, on the trade court’s decision, and said it would turn to the Supreme Court as soon as Friday if the lower appeals court did not step in.
“Absent at least interim relief from this court, the United States plans
to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court tomorrow to avoid the irreparable national security and economic harms at stake,” the administration said.
The administration separately asked the trade court for a stay on its initial ruling, which gave the White House 10 days to comply with its order.
The White House said it was “confident” the trade court’s ruling would be overturned on appeal.
But Trump’s top trade and economic advisers insisted there were other ways for the president to pursue his global trade war — and that negotiations for deals with other nations would carry on.
“We think we have a strong case. Yes, we will immediately appeal and try to stay the ruling,” Peter Navarro, the chief architect of Trump’s trade wars, told Bloomberg on Thursday morning.
He said the trade court ruling showed the administration could also use different legal bases to impose a baseline 10 per cent tariff and higher “reciprocal” duties on many countries.
“So nothing has really changed here in that sense . . . We are still, as we speak, having countries call us and tell us they want a deal,” Navarro added. “These deals are going to happen.”
The ruling by the Court of International Trade comes as the Trump administration is pushing to make trade deals with dozens of countries.
Wall Street analysts suggested the court ruling would slow down, but not derail, the White House’s plans. US stocks rose after the decision but the rally moderated, with the S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite both up 0.2 per cent in mid-afternoon trading.
“The administration is likely to either successfully appeal the ruling or to use other authority . . . to keep tariff rates high and revenue substantial,” Citi analysts wrote in a note on Thursday. “For now, the ruling will complicate and potentially delay trade negotiations.”
Goldman Sachs president John Waldron told a conference in New York on Thursday that he still expected the US government to increase tariffs on most countries.
“I think we’re going to go towards a 10 per cent universal baseline tariff with individualised, targeted tariffs on top with individual countries,” he said.
Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, also insisted that the Trump administration would be able to press ahead with its plans.
“Trump does always win these negotiations because we are right. We are right that America has been mishandled by other governments, that our tariffs are taking them to the table, and they are coming in with massive concessions, opening up their markets to our products and lowering their tariffs on us,” he told Fox Business.
“These activist judges are trying to slow down something right in the middle of really important negotiations.”
Hassett said there were “different approaches” that the administration could take to impose tariffs if required, but added: “We’re not planning to pursue those right now because we’re very, very confident that this really is incorrect.”
Additional reporting by Joe Miller in Washington and Martin Arnold in New York
