Trade Access Helped Halt Indo-Pak War: US Govt Tells Court

The United States government has told a court that any ruling impeding President Donald Trump's use of emergency powers to invoke tariffs would imperil foreign policy arrangements across the world, including the May 10 ceasefire between India and Pakistan that it said was "achieved only after" both nations were offered "trading access with the US to avert a full-scale war".

- HT Correspondent

NEW DELHI:

US secretary of commerce Howard W Lutnick made the submission on May 23, in a lawsuit filed by attorneys general of 12 Democrat-ruled states against Trump and a clutch of US departments in the US Court of International Trade. The states argued that the President's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to slap steep tariffs on dozens of nations, including a 26% levy on Indian imports, was unlawful and arbitrary. Lutnick, in his submission, said that a ruling restricting IEEPA would "have ripple effects across every domain in which economic instruments are used for strategic effect".