A day after the Court of International Trade ruled that the tariffs President Trump has imposed under the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are unlawful, the District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs at all.
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The D.C. court agreed with the two importers that brought the case that IEEPA does not enable the president “to unilaterally impose, revoke, pause, reinstate, and adjust tariffs to reorder the global economy.” The court specifically pointed to the fact that the law does not use the words “tariffs” or “duties,” their synonyms, or any other similar terms like “customs,” “taxes,” or “imposts.” While IEEPA does authorize the president to regulate importation, the court said, “the power to regulate is not the power to tax,” and if Congress had wanted to give the latter power (which rests constitutionally with that body) to the president “it would have had to say so.”
The court also determined that (1) other laws that do give the president the authority to impose tariffs set limits on such authority that “would be eviscerated if the president could invoke a virtually unrestricted tariffing power under IEEPA,” (2) IEEPA has been consistently understood by the executive branch to authorize economic sanctions and has never been used to impose tariffs, and (3) the president’s powers under IEEPA extend only to property in which a foreign country or national has an interest, whereas tariffs are typically assessed after U.S.-based importers have taken legal possession of imported goods.
Because IEEPA is therefore not a law providing for tariffs, the D.C. court (1) claimed that it, not the CIT, has jurisdiction over this case, and (2) ruled that the tariffs imposed pursuant to IEEPA are unlawful.
The court granted a preliminary injunction halting the IEEPA tariffs but (1) specified that this injunction only applies to the two importers that brought the case and (2) suspended that injunction for 14 days. On June 3 the court went a step further by staying its entire decision pending an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
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