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Tug-of-War
The Statesman Kolkata
|May 31, 2025
The battle over US President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs has taken a sharp turn.
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Just a day after a federal trade court ruled that the President had overstepped his authority, a federal appeals court hit pause – allowing the tariffs to stay in place for now.
The legal rollercoaster is far from over, but one thing is clear: the constitutional struggle over who holds the reins of US trade policy is heating up. The lower court had issued a strong rebuke, finding that Mr. Trump's broad use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose import taxes – on everything from Chinese toys to Italian wine – stretched the law far beyond its original intent.
Meant for national emergencies and hostile foreign actors, the IEEPA was never designed as a blunt-force trade tool. The court's message was pointed: presidents can't unilaterally redefine trade policy by declaring economic conditions an emergency. But that message has been temporarily muted.
This story is from the May 31, 2025 edition of The Statesman Kolkata.
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