Explained: What Happens To Trump’s Tariffs After US Court Knocked Them Down
Washington:
President Donald Trump has audaciously claimed virtually unlimited power to bypass Congress and impose sweeping taxes on foreign products.
Now a federal appeals court has thrown a roadblock in his path.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled Friday that Trump went too far when he declared national emergencies to justify imposing sweeping import taxes on almost every country on earth. The ruling largely upheld a May decision by a specialized federal trade court in New York. But the 7-4 appeals court decision tossed out a part of that ruling striking down the tariffs immediately, allowing his administration time to appeal to the US Supreme Court.
The ruling was a big setback for Trump, whose erratic trade policies have rocked financial markets, paralyzed businesses with uncertainty and raised fears of higher prices and slower economic growth.
The court’s decision centers on the tariffs Trump slapped in April on almost all US trading partners and levies he imposed before that on China, Mexico and Canada.
Trump on April 2 – Liberation Day, he called it – imposed so-called reciprocal tariffs of up to 50% on countries with which the United States runs a trade deficit and 10% baseline tariffs on almost everybody else.
