A federal appeals court on Thursday slammed the brakes on a Court of International Trade ruling that blocked President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on a wide array of imported products.
The new ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit means Trump’s tariffs can stand, at least for the time being. The administrative pause gives the appeals court’s judges time to gather information about the case. “The appeals court also ordered that both sides provide written arguments on the question of the blocking of Trump’s tariffs, to be filed by early next month,” according to CNN.
Appeals court allows Trump tariffs to stand for the time being
The on-again/off-again nature of the tariffs continues to whipsaw companies like Apple that manufacture products abroad as they attempt to come up with workarounds. Apple has been scrambling to move production out of China — the chief target of Trump’s trade war — and into countries like India and Vietnam.
Earlier this month, Apple said the tariffs would cost the company nearly $1 billion this quarter alone. And last week, Trump singled out Apple with a threat of additional import taxes for having the iPhone assembled outside of the United States.
U.S. trade court calls Trump tariffs unconstitutional
The appeals court’s order paused a Wednesday ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade, which called Trump’s basis for imposing tariffs on virtually every product imported into the United States unconstitutional. The Trump administration appealed the ruling Wednesday and threatened to take the case to the Supreme Court.
The International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (aka IEEPA) gives the U.S. president the ability to unilaterally set tariffs in extreme circumstances, and Trump used it to impose very widespread import taxes since he came into office in January.
But the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that IEEPA can‘t be used in non-emergency situations to regulate all U.S. trade. The Constitution gave authority over international trade to Congress, not the president, so Trump using widespread tariffs to regulate trade is unconstitutional.
“An unlimited delegation of tariff authority would constitute an improper abdication of legislative power to another branch of government,” the three-judge panel said. “Regardless of whether the court views the president’s actions through the nondelegation doctrine, through the major questions doctrine, or simply with separation of powers in mind, any interpretation of IEEPA that delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional.”
The court ordered all tariffs imposed by Trump “vacated.”
Trade deficits are an emergency, argued White House spokesperson Kush Desai. The Trump administration appealed the court’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The case may eventually go to the Supreme Court.
Some Trump tariffs can continue
The U.S. Court of International Trade didn’t declare IEEPA unconstitutional, just the sweeping Trump tariffs. It still gives the President the authority to impose import taxes of up to 15% for up to 150 days on countries with very high trade deficits, the court noted. But all other tariffs must be voted on by Congress.
The ruling has an enormous effect on Apple, as the hefty tariffs Trump imposed on importing products made outside the United States have been ordered to be removed.
We originally published this post at 6:47 a.m. Pacific on May 29. We updated it with information about the appeals court’s ruling.
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 25 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh Classic II (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer. He’s written for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview, and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
