A federal court blocked President Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on imports from almost every country in the world. Yahoo says a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that Trump overstepped his authority when he invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to declare a national emergency and justify the sweeping tariffs. The tariffs overturned decades of U.S. trade policy, disrupted global commerce, destabilized financial markets, and heightened the risk of rising prices and a domestic and international recession. The court’s decision blocks the tariffs Trump put in place during April on almost all of America’s trading partners and levies he imposed before that on China, Mexico, and Canada. The Court of International Trade has jurisdiction over civil cases involving trade. Its decisions can be appealed to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, where the legal challenges to the tariffs will likely end up.
Within minutes of the U.S. Court of International Trade’s ruling on Wednesday, the White House announced that it would appeal the court’s finding – which ultimately puts the fate of the tariffs in the hands of an appellate court or potentially the U.S. Supreme Court.
Late on Thursday, a U.S. appeals court agreed that Trump’s tariffs can remain in place pending an appeal hearing by the Trump administration. If the administration loses that appeal, it is expected to take the case to the Supreme Court.
