The government has 10 days to issue orders implementing the Court of International Trade’s May 28 permanent injunction shutting down International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, as well as the 10% and country-specific IEEPA reciprocal tariffs, according to a judgment issued by the court alongside its opinion. The government has already filed an appeal of the decision.
The Commerce Department, after suggesting that the import of semiconductors, products containing semiconductors, and equipment and inputs used to make chips could be making the U.S. vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, is now hearing from dozens of stakeholders who say the administration has it completely backwards. Time after time, in more than 150 submitted comments for the Section 232 investigation, stakeholders said imposing tariffs is what would lead to shortages, manufacturing woes, and a loss of competitiveness in the design and manufacture of chips.
The Court of International Trade on May 28 vacated President Donald Trump's reciprocal tariffs and tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, all of which were issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The court held that the retaliatory tariffs "exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs" and that the tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico "fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders." Judges Gary Katzmann, Jane Restani and Timothy Reif permanently enjoined the tariffs, declaring that if the tariffs are "unlawful as to Plaintiff they are unlawful as to all."
Correction: Higher country-specific reciprocal tariff rates imposed on some countries April 9 then suspended for 90 days that same day are set to resume effect July 9 (see 2505220009, 2505020060, 2505090006, 2505090061, 2505220008 and 2505010054).
President Donald Trump, after speaking to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on May 25, said it would be his "privilege" to give talks between the EU and the U.S. the same runway as other talks to avoid a hike in reciprocal tariffs.
One of the lawyers representing five importers suing President Donald Trump over his emergency tariffs said that the president's approach to tariffs, constantly threatening various new rates, sometimes backing off, and sometimes not, isn't just a "menace to the economy," it also "is totally at odds with the rule of law."
The U.S. filed another defense of tariff action taken under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act last week at the Court of International Trade, more fulsomely embracing the notion that the president needs tariff-setting authority under IEEPA to address a host of foreign policy issues. Opposing a group of 11 importers' motion for judgment against the reciprocal tariffs and IEEPA tariffs on China, the government argued that "the success of the Nation" in "navigating and addressing a range of extremely consequential threats" is "built off the dispatch and unitary nature of the executive, girded by necessary tools," including IEEPA tariffs (Princess Awesome v. CBP, CIT # 25-00078).
President Donald Trump elaborated on his tariff intentions with reporters in the White House, after posting online earlier in the day that 50% tariffs would begin on EU exports on June 1, and that he would be imposing a 25% tariff on imported iPhones.
The head of the Africa Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said that Africans who are worried about the possible end of the African Growth and Opportunity Act should remember that it's not just their countries that are losing trade access.
Cecilia Malmstrom, a former top European Commission trade official, said the EU is "painfully aware that the transatlantic relationship as we used to know it has been severely damaged."