A federal US appeals court on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump did not have the authority to impose sweeping tariffs on foreign imports but it delayed implementation of its order till mid-October so that the administration can appeal the case in the Supreme Court. In effect, despite being knocked down by the appeals court, the tariffs remain in place for now. In a case brought by the public interest litigation firm Liberty Justice Center and argued by Indian-American attorney Neal Katyal, the appeals court, in a 7-4 ruling, upheld a lower court decision that President Trump overstepped his authority in using a 1977 law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), to impose most of his tariffs. “The statute bestows significant authority on the President to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency, but none of these actions explicitly include the power to impose tariffs, duties, or the like, or the power to tax,” the judges wrote in their ruling, upholding what is widely seen as the domain of lawmakers. An enraged President Trump, in seclusion for the past three days, emerged on his social media platform to thunder that the appeals court is partisan, tariffs are required to protect America, and “with the help of the United States Supreme Court, we will use them (tariffs) to the benefit of our Nation, and Make America Rich, Strong, and Powerful Again!”Trump’s presumption that the SC will “help” in the case, even before his administration has formally filed an appeal, is evidently based on the conservative 6-3 majority he has engineered in the apex court, stacking it with three handpicked nominees in his first term. But Neal Katyal, a former acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, who represented LJC and other plaintiffs in the case, said the ruling was win for the American constitution, which gives the power of taxation to the Congress, not to the President by the stroke of his pen. “If he feels imposing tariffs is so important, let him go and make the case to Congress, where his party has a majority,” Katyal said on CNN, pointing out that the President had failed to convince the Congress on this issue in his first term and had now taken to extra-constitutional means in his second term. Katyal confirmed that he will be arguing the case in the SC and hoped it would accept that the power to impose taxes and tariffs rests with Congress, as the country’s founding fathers intended. The Supreme Court, stacked with Trump nominees and three other conservative justices appointed before his Presidency, has typically leaned towards him. But his MAGA base is jittery about two justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who on occasions have ruled against him. If both rule against the appeal, then the White House will have to take the tariff issue to Congress, where Republicans hold a narrow majority, but several GOP lawmakers are not happy ceding powers to the Executive. In the case before the appeals court, Katyal challenged the administration’s justification for the tariffs, arguing that a trade deficit does not constitute an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to national security or the economy, as required by the IEEPA. He pointed out that trade deficits have existed for decades and do not meet the definition of an emergency that would warrant such a use of executive power.In a post on Truth Social, Trump maintained that if the tariffs he has imposed were rescinded it would be a total disaster for the country. “The U.S.A. will no longer tolerate enormous Trade Deficits and unfair Tariffs and Non Tariff Trade Barriers imposed by other Countries, friend or foe, that undermine our Manufacturers, Farmers, and everyone else. If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America,” he raged.
