Jolt for Trump tariff plan

Uncertainty will nevertheless continue as the US President is unlikely to back down

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The US Court of International Trade (CIT) has delivered a major setback to President Donald Trump's weaponisation of tariffs to pressurise nations — especially those that registered persistent bilateral trade surpluses — to strike deals that are more favourable to the US. On Wednesday, a three-member panel of federal judges ruled that the US President had overstepped his authority to impose tariffs on nearly every country around the world. This ruling effectively blocks him from levying the steepest tariffs on China and other major trading partners as the federal law did not grant him "unbounded authority" to do so. Before Trump 2.0, no US president had invoked provisions of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — intended to address "unusual and extraordinary" threats during a national emergency — to levy duties on virtually every nation. Tariffs are not part of this 1977 law. The CIT also said that the US Constitution provides Congress exclusive authority to regulate trade with other nations that is not overridden by the i