Donald Trump: US court declares his customs policy to be unlawful

A Federal Supreme Court blocked Donald Trump’s customs policy and lifted almost all of the customs surcharges he imposed. Trump exceeded his powers with the appeal to an emergency law of 1977, it was said in the judgment of the US trade court published on Wednesday (local time) and viewed by the AFP news agency. Any interpretation of the law “which provides an unlimited transfer of customs powers” is “unconstitutional”. The US government appealed against the judgment.

Trump could not rely on an emergency law from 1977 to “impose an unlimited surcharge on goods from practically every country”, judged the three judges at the court for international trade (ITC), which decides on civil law in connection with trade disputes. According to them, the congress has “not” unexpectedly “powers to the President with the emergency law. “An unlimited transfer of customs powers would represent an inadmissible transfer of legislative powers to another branch of the government.”

With their decision, the judges did not question the general possibility of the United States to increase imports raised. In their view, however, the privilege for this is exclusively with the congress.

The Law of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act from 1977 only authorized the president of imposing economic sanctions in an emergency “to combat an unusual and extraordinary threat,” said the court documents.

The US government wants to legally contest the judicial cancellation of its planned mutual tariffs. The defendants would “appeal to the US Court of Appeal,” said the government lawyers later on Wednesday in a court document viewed by the AFP. The court had given the White House ten days to complete the bureaucratic procedure to cancel the tariffs.

In a first reaction, the White House attacked the judges for their decision. It criticized the judgment with the argument that it was “not a matter of not elected judge” to decide “how to adequately handle a national emergency”. President Trump had promised to “put America in the first place,” said government spokesman Kush Desai. The government is “determined to use every lever of the executive violence in order to cope with this crisis and to restore America’s size”.

One of Trump’s closest employees in the White House, his consultant Stephen Miller, said even more clearly. In the online networks, he spoke of a “judicial coup”, which in his opinion “got out of control”.

Trump had imposed high additional tariffs against numerous states at the beginning of April, but shortly afterwards reduced it to a basic customs of ten percent for 90 days. In addition, US tariffs of 25 percent apply to cars and steel and aluminum products.

At the announcement of the tariffs on April 2, the “Liberation Day” he proclaimed, Trump had appointed himself to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act from 1977. On Friday, Trump had also threatened to import imports from the European Union with tariffs of 50 percent from June. After a phone call with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, he granted a postponement until July 9th.