Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Amid his tariff temblors, as Donald Trump continues to blow hot and cold, a dozen American states have sued the US President’s administration urging the courts to stop the “unlawful” policy that had brought chaos to the country’s economy, the media reported on Thursday.
These states sued the Trump administration in the US Court of International Trade in New York on Wednesday, saying it has left the national trade policy subject to Trump’s “whims rather than the sound exercise of lawful authority.”
It also challenged President Trump’s claim that he could arbitrarily impose tariffs based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and urged the court to declare the tariffs as illegal, and block government agencies and its officers from enforcing them.
The states listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit were Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Vermont.
In a release, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes called Trump’s tariff scheme “insane.” She said it was “not only economically reckless — it is illegal.”
The lawsuit maintained that only the US Congress has the power to impose tariffs and that the President can only invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act when an emergency presents an “unusual and extraordinary threat” from abroad.
“By claiming the authority to impose immense and ever-changing tariffs on whatever goods entering the United States he chooses, for whatever reason he finds convenient to declare an emergency, the President has upended the constitutional order and brought chaos to the American economy,” the lawsuit said.
Last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, sued the Trump administration in the US District Court in the Northern District of California over the tariff policy, saying his state could lose billions of dollars in revenue as the largest importer in the US.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai responded to Newsom’s lawsuit, saying the Trump administration “remains committed to addressing this national emergency that’s decimating America’s industries and leaving our workers behind with every tool at our disposal, from tariffs to negotiations.”
