President Donald Trump‘s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs face their first significant legal challenge, filed Monday by the Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian public-interest group, alongside legal scholar Ilya Somin.
The lawsuit, brought on behalf of five small businesses, argues Trump overstepped his authority by invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs unilaterally. The law has historically been used for targeted economic sanctions—not broad-based trade measures.
“Our system is not set up so that one person can impose taxes across the global economy,” said Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel at Liberty Justice Center.
The April 2 tariffs established a baseline 10% import levy and much higher “reciprocal” tariffs for dozens of countries, which Trump later paused for 90 days. The suit, filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade, challenges the global scope of the tariffs and joins a separate legal challenge from the New Civil Liberties Alliance regarding China-specific tariffs.
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