US court blocks Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs

In a setback to US President Donald Trump’s trade strategy, a US federal court has blocked his sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs – and another set of levies on China, Mexico and Canada with ties to the US fentanyl crisis – ruling that the US leader overstepped his authority in using emergency powers to impose hefty levies on all trading partners.

“The court does not read [the International Emergency Economic Powers Act] to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder,” a three-judge panel of the New York-based US Court of International Trade said in a joint verdict in two lawsuits.

The cases were brought by 12 US states, led by Oregon, and five American businesses.

The ruling marks the first major legal challenge to Trump’s tariffs, and the outcome potentially upends the president’s controversial efforts to prod US and other countries’ companies to move their factories to America.

In a statement to the South China Morning Post, White House Spokesman Kush Desai slammed the ruling, saying that “it is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency”.

“President Trump pledged to put America First, and the administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness”, he added.