A group of two dozen state attorneys general sued President Donald Trump Thursday in an effort to block his new 10% tariffs from taking force, a move that all but ensures Trump’s newly revived tariff regime will end up back before the federal courts for the second time in nearly as many years.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in the Court of International Trade by attorneys general from 24 states, including New York, Oregon, California and Arizona.
The state attorneys general argued in the lawsuit that Trump lacks the authority to impose the 10% tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.
They described the effort as an attempt to “sidestep” last month’s 6-3 Supreme Court ruling, which blocked Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to unilaterally impose his 10% global tariff announced last April.
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Trump responded to the ruling by immediately invoking Section 122 to keep the 10% tariffs in place in the near term. He also said then that the administration is planning to increase the import duties from 10% to 15% for certain countries.
In the lawsuit, the state AGs said Trump “has made clear that he is going to impose worldwide tariffs by any means necessary” and argued that the effort is “an exercise of completely unrestrained executive power.”
“As with his unlawful use of IEEPA, the President has once again exercised tariff authority that he does not have — involving a statute that does not authorize the tariffs he has imposed — to upend the constitutional order and bring chaos to the global economy,” they added.
Next steps in the case are unclear, though the new lawsuit is likely to be met with fierce opposition from the White House and Justice Department.
Trump has continued to embrace tariffs as the signature economic policy of his second White House term. Trump, who previously billed himself the “Tariff Man,” has described the issue as “life or death” for the U.S. economy.
Last April, Trump declared a national trade emergency to invoke IEEPA, citing the law as a means to address trade imbalances, reduce deficits with key trading partners and boost domestic manufacturing and production.
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Two federal courts — the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit — previously blocked Trump’s use of IEEPA to enact his tariffs, prompting the administration to kick the case to the Supreme Court last year for emergency relief. (The Manhattan-based Court of International Trade ruled last year that Trump, as commander in chief, does not have “unbounded authority” to impose tariffs under the emergency law.)
Lower courts had pressed the Justice Department to explain why Trump invoked IEEPA when other, more narrowly tailored statutes enacted by Congress more specifically address tariffs, including laws that cap tariffs at certain levels or set timeframes subject to congressional review.
Section 122 tariffs can remain in place for up to 150 days without congressional approval, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed on the Senate floor last week that the Democratic caucus would not approve an extension of the broad import duties.
Legally, the administration could have its work cut out for it as well.
Some economists — as well as the state AGs — argue that there is a difference between a traditional balance of payment deficit and the trade deficit between the U.S. and other countries.
“Contrary to the Section 122 Proclamation, a trade deficit is not a balance of payments deficit,” the states argued in their lawsuit.
Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Michigan, told Fox News Digital in an interview last year that Trump’s focus on the trade “deficit” is in fact based on a common misconception.
“We have a dollar deficit, but we have a stuff surplus,” he said.
“What that means is we sell China a small amount of stuff, and they sell us a large amount of stuff,” Wolfers explained. For every dollar bill that goes to China, the U.S. gets something for it that Americans want to buy, like T-shirts.
