XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.atheism, alt.home.repair
XPost: rec.arts.tv

Der Fuehrer has the right to do anything he wants. He could order
death squads on you village so fear him!


https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/31/trump-tariff-arguments-appeals- court-00486972?

Trumps tariffs get frosty reception at federal appeals court

During a lengthy oral argument, judges were skeptical that Trump had the
power to use an emergency law to enact the tariffs.
Donald Trump holds up a chart on reciprocal tariffs.

President Donald Trump initially imposed his reciprocal tariffs aimed at reducing the trade deficit in early April, but then paused the majority
of them until Aug. 1. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
By Kyle Cheney and Doug Palmer07/31/2025 02:05 PM EDT

Federal appeals court judges on Thursday sharply questioned President
Donald Trumps authority to impose sweeping tariffs on foreign trading
partners under an unprecedented use of emergency powers.

Several judges of the Washington, D. C. -based Federal Circuit Court of
Appeals repeatedly wondered how Trump could justify the broad tariffs
using a 1977 law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers
Act, or IEEPA, that presidents have used to set economic sanctions and
other penalties on foreign countries but never previously tariffs.

One of the major concerns that I have is that IEEPA doesnt even mention
the word tariffs anywhere, said Judge Jimmie Reyna, an Obama appointee.

Other judges seemed to agree that Trump had used a statute intended to
give presidents emergency powers to deal with an international crisis
to, instead, usurp a key congressional responsibility.

Its just hard for me to see that Congress intended to give the president
in IEEPA the wholesale authority to throw out the tariff schedule that
Congress has adopted after years of careful work, and revise every one
of these tariff rates, said Judge Timothy Dyk, a Clinton appointee.

The appeals court heard nearly two hours of oral arguments before a
packed courthouse on a pair of lawsuits, each challenging tariffs
imposed by Trump in a series of executive orders he signed between
February and April. One case was brought by private companies; the other
was brought by 11 Democratic-controlled states.

Some of the judges noted that large swaths of the nations complex and longstanding trade procedures would essentially become superfluous if
the president could simply declare an emergency without review by courts
as the Trump administration contends and impose tariffs of any size and duration. They also emphasized that tariffs imposed by President Richard
Nixon under an older emergency power only survived legal challenges
because they were targeted at a narrow problem and had a clear
expiration date.

However, the 11 judges vigorously questioned attorneys for the states
and the private companies as well. Judge Richard Taranto, an Obama
appointee, said he did not think the plaintiffs had really addressed
what the Trump administration contends are a string of negative
consequences that flow from having a large trade deficit, in terms of
the impact on manufacturing and military preparedness.

When Oregon Solicitor General Benjamin Gutman said Trumps executive
order spent only a sentence on those consequences, Chief Judge Kimberly
Moore, a George W. Bush appointee, pushed back.

I dont know if you and I are reading a totally different executive
order, Moore said.

I see one that talks about U. S. production, one that talks about
military equipment, one that talks about how U. S. security is
compromised by foreign producers of goods. One that talks about how the
decline of U. S. manufacturing capacity threatens the U. S. economy in
other ways, including the loss of manufacturing jobs. How does that not constitute what the president is expressly saying is an extraordinary
threat?

The New York-based U. S. Court of International Trade ruled in May that
Trump had exceeded his authority under IEEPA to impose the tariffs and
ordered them to be vacated. The Trump administration appealed that
ruling to the Federal Circuit, which allowed the government to continue collecting the duties while the case proceeds. The appeals court set a rapid-fire schedule to consider the matter in front of the courts full 11-member bench, which is made up of eight Democratic appointees, three Republican appointees and no Trump appointees.

The lawsuit is expected to end up at the Supreme Court.

Trump has used IEEPA to impose two primary sets of tariffs: one aimed at pressuring China, Canada and Mexico to stop the flow of fentanyl and
precursor chemicals into the United States and another aimed at reducing
the large U. S. trade deficit. Trump initially imposed his reciprocal
tariffs aimed at reducing the trade deficit in early April, but then
paused the majority of them until Aug. 1. He has, however, kept in place
a 10-percent baseline tariff on all goods since April 5.

In recent weeks and months, Trump has negotiated a series of trade deals
with countries, including the United Kingdom, Vietnam, Japan and the 27-
nation European Union that have resulted in lower tariff rates than he announced in April. But he still plans to raise duties on those
countries to between 15 and 20 percent beginning Friday, using IEEPA authorities.

Trumps justification for the emergency tariffs is the nations
longstanding and persistent trade deficits with foreign trading
partners, which he says have become so acute they now threaten military readiness and Americas manufacturing capacity. He has also imposed a 50
percent tariff on Brazil, citing that countrys trial of former President
Jair Bolsonaro, a former Trump ally, and free speech concerns, which the
White House claims amounts to an emergency.

Both the states and the private companies argue the trade deficit is
neither an unusual or extraordinary threat nor an emergency, since the
United States has had one for decades. Both conditions are required
under IEEPA for Trump to take action. The Justice Department disagrees,
saying the trade deficit has been exploding in recent years, rising from
$559 billion in 2019 to $903 billion in 2024.

As the lawsuit has been pending, Trump has continued using his claimed
tariff authority as leverage to negotiate trade deals with foreign
partners and punish governments he says are acting counter to American interests. Justice Department attorney Brett Shumate told the judges
that Trumps use of the tariffs as a bargaining chip was an important
aspect of his effort to deal with the emergency he described. Shumate
cited the recently negotiated deal with the European Union as an
example.

Even as Thursdays hearing was underway, Trump announced he had reached
an agreement with Mexico to forestall steeper tariffs amid complex
negotiations about a long-term trade deal.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)