Appeals Court Rules That Most of Trump's Tariffs are Unlawful

A federal appeals court has affirmed the lower court ruling that invalidated the Trump administration's sweeping nation-by-nation "retaliatory" tariffs. The court found that the levies do not have a legal basis under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the law that the administration has used to undergird most of its rapidly-shifting tariff announcements.

IEEPA was enacted in 1977 to limit the president's power to impose punitive trade measures without Congress' involvement. The act allows the president to take certain trade actions during a declared emergency to respond to an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to America's economy or national security. Powers enumerated under the act include blocking tranactions, freezing assets, and (in the event of an actual attack) confiscating property belonging to the threat. The statute limits each "emergency" to one year at a time, an attempt to curtail open-ended presidential decrees. It has been used by previous presidents on rare occasions, like sanctioning Al Qaeda, targeting the ayatollahs' regime in Iran, or limiting the finances of Colombian drug gangs.

Trump used IEEPA extensively during his first term, and has begun to apply it in earnest since January 2025. Most of his administration's tariffs - including all of his "reciprocal" tariffs on U.S. trading partners - rest on claims of authorities under IEEPA, but the administration has had difficulty defending these applications of the statute in court.

In May, the Court of International Trade in New York found that Trump's retaliatory tariffs were not legally justified by IEEPA, but it stayed its decision pending appeal. The administration then took the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; on Friday, the court determined that IEEPA does not give the president any tariff powers (the word tariff does not appear in the text of the statute). Since Congress did not say that it would hand over its constitutional authority to levy tariffs when it wrote IEEPA, the court ruled, Congress did not delegate those powers to the president; though the White House does have other tariff authority under other statutes, the court found that it does not have tariff authority stemming from IEEPA.

IEEPA "neither mentions tariffs (or any of its synonyms) nor has procedural safeguards that contain clear limits on the president's power to impose tariffs," the appeals court ruled. "Whenever Congress intends to delegate to the president the authority to impose tariffs, it does so explicitly, either by using unequivocal terms like tariff and duty, or via an overall structure which makes clear that Congress is referring to tariffs."

The appeals court stayed its ruling to give time for an appeal to the Supreme Court, which is highly likely. The court has responded favorably on most the administration's requests for emergency stays, and Trump held out hope that it would pause or overrule this court decision as well.

"Tariffs were allowed to be used against us by our uncaring and unwise Politicians," President Trump wrote Friday in a social media post. "Now, with the help of the United States Supreme Court, we will use them to the benefit of our Nation, and Make America Rich, Strong, and Powerful Again!"