By Enyichukwu Enemanna
President Donald Trump’s administration has criticised US “unelected judges” following a federal court unanimous ruling on Wednesday which held that the White House does not have “unbounded authority” to levy sweeping global tariffs under an emergency-powers law.
The ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade was in response to two groups of plaintiffs who sued the Trump administration over the tariffs, saying he violated the Constitution by sidestepping Congress and went ahead to impose the duties.
It could be recalled that Trump had, in his April 2 “liberation day” announcement, imposed sweeping tariffs across the globe, imposing heavy duties on U.S. trading partners, a development that stirred market turmoil.
But the three-man panel of justices of the federal court in summary held that, “The question in the two cases before the court is whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (‘IEEPA’) delegates these powers to the President in the form of authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world.”
“The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder,” the panel said.
One of the judges on the panel is a Trump appointee, while the other two were appointed by President Ronald Reagan and President Barack Obama.
In a statement reacting to the ruling, a White House spokesperson reiterated Trump’s criticisms of other countries’ “nonreciprocal treatment” of the U.S.
“These deficits have created a national emergency that has decimated American communities, left our workers behind, and weakened our defence industrial base – facts that the court did not dispute,” the spokesperson told Newsweek.
“It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency. President Trump pledged to put America First, and the Administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness,” the spokesperson added.
The Trump administration has already given notice that it will appeal the ruling.
