Twelve U.S. states filed a lawsuit on April 23 challenging the legality of the Trump administration's broad tariff agenda. The suit said that the agenda unlawfully undermines Congress' constitutional authority to regulate foreign commerce, according to NBC News.
The legal challenge, led by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, wants to halt the enforcement of the global tariffs President Donald Trump levied that invoked a wartime law that grants U.S. presidents the jurisdiction to oversee trade if the U.S. is in a state of emergency.
"By claiming the authority to impose immense and ever-changing tariffs on whatever goods entering the United States he chooses, for whatever reason he finds convenient to declare an emergency, the President has upended the constitutional order and brought chaos to the American economy," noted the complaint Democratic attorneys general filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade.
Accounting Today reports this suit comes after a handful of other lawsuits that were filed by the state of California, small businesses and members of the Blackfeet Nation tribe in Montana. These suits also make similar claims.
The states' suit seeks a court order to stop the tariffs such as the worldwide levies Trump paused on April 9. The states allege the tariffs are tantamount to a massive tax on U.S. consumers.
The complaint is against Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which the president invoked for "the most damaging of his tariffs," the suit stated.
The states argue the law was passed 50 years ago to stop presidents from abusing emergency powers, and that it can only be used to respond to an "unusual and extraordinary threat." Trade deficits and other issues that were cited by Trump do not meet that standard, the states stated, Accounting Today reports.