Trump’s tariff powers tested again as judges question ‘deficit’ justification

US President Donald Trump’s tariffs returned to court on Friday, as a three-judge Court of International Trade panel in New York sharply questioned both sides while weighing the legality of a new set of tariffs he imposed in February, shortly after a Supreme Court ruling declared most of his sweeping levies unlawful.While the judges offered few clues on how they might rule on the Section 122 tariffs, the court has previously rejected business challenges seeking to invalidate Section 301 tariffs dating from Trump’s first term, even as it moved to strike down tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act last year.Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows temporary tariffs to address US balance-of-payments pressures, while Section 301 is used to target unfair trade practices by specific countries.The distinction turns in part on how the authorities operate: Section 301 tariffs are imposed following an investigation, while Section 122 measures are time-limited and must be referred to Congress after 150 days. By contrast, the IEEPA case centred on the president’s emergency powers to impose wide-ranging tariffs.Plaintiffs urged the court to block the tariffs before they expire to prevent the administration from cycling through different statutes to keep them in place.“It’s not like IEEPA, where they were going to go on for a while; they’re just 150 days,” observed Judge Claire Kelly.