US federal court hears new case against Trump tariffs

The case is to overturn the temporary tariffs that Trump imposed after the Supreme Court struck down his earlier ones.The centrepiece of United States President Donald Trump’s economic policy — sweeping taxes on global imports — is under legal assault again.A three-judge panel of the US Court of International Trade, a specialised court in New York, is hearing oral arguments on Friday in an attempt to overturn the temporary tariffs Trump turned to after the Supreme Court in February struck down his preferred choice — even bigger, even more sweeping tariffs.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Energy prices may take ‘months’ to normalise, despite ceasefire: Analystslist 2 of 4NASA prepares for Artemis II splashdown: When it happens and how to watchlist 3 of 4Inflation rises in US amid Hormuz blockade, consumer sentiment plungeslist 4 of 4Potholes and progress: Mamdani reflects on 100 days as New York’s mayorend of listSeveral US states and small businesses have said the 10 percent global import tax that Trump imposed in February sidesteps the Supreme Court ruling that invalidated most of his previous tariffs.A group of 24 mostly Democratic-led states and two small businesses sued the Trump administration to stop the new tariffs, which went into effect on February 24.Oregon’s lawyer Brian Marshall told the judges they should block the 10 percent tariffs rather than let them expire on the normal 150-day timeline, to keep Trump from invoking a variety of laws to keep them indefinitely.“[If] we have a successive series where there’s always tariffs in place, that’s a problem,” Marshall said.Marshall also said the tariffs were based on archaic authority that was meant to protect the US dollar from sudden depreciation in the 1970s, when dollars could be exchanged for gold reserves held in Fort Knox.He said that authority was meant to resolve significant “balance-of-payments deficits”, and Trump cannot repurpose it to address routine trade deficits.Tariffs, a central pillarTrump has made tariffs a central pillar of his foreign policy in his second term, claiming sweeping authority to issue tariffs without input from Congress.