(Politico)—The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has no immediate plans to join the growing number of lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump’s so-called Liberation Day tariffs, two people with direct knowledge of discussions confirmed to POLITICO.
The business group, one of the most influential trade associations in Washington, will instead focus on lobbying the Trump administration on the tariffs directly, said the people, who were granted anonymity to divulge sensitive and developing discussions.
The Chamber was previously mulling a lawsuit over Trump’s use of a 1970s-era emergency law to impose tariffs. But the lobbying group, which claims to represent millions of business owners, decided against legal action for now, swayed by the threat of tariffs being re-applied under a separate statute if a lawsuit was successful, the people said.
The Chamber’s decision follows a wave of legal challenges from businesses arguing the president exceeded his authority on tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. California Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a lawsuit Wednesday, warning the state could lose billions due to its trade-reliant industries.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta told POLITICO he had “direct conversations” with “quite a few folks” from businesses and trade organizations angry with Trump’s tariff before filing the suit, adding, “This is very specifically important to California,” and noting the state’s standing as the fifth-largest economy in the world. “We wanted to move quickly and assertively.”
Two conservative legal groups — the Liberty Justice Center and the New Civil Liberties Alliance — also filed separate suits in recent weeks.
“While we believe that tariffs under [the International Emergency Economic Powers Act] are legally questionable, the president has other tools to impose similar tariffs that equally damage America’s Main Street Businesses,” the Chamber said in a statement to POLITICO. “The only way to provide immediate relief is for the Administration to pull back on these harmful tariffs.”
Trump has used the emergency law to impose a flat 10 percent duty on trading partners and a 145 percent tariff on China, as well as so-called reciprocal tariffs on more than 60 other trading partners before pausing those duties for 90 days. The emergency law grants the president wide authority to control economic transactions during an emergency, but prior to Trump it had never been used to impose tariffs, meaning it has not been legally tested.
Some legal scholars say it’s possible a judge will deem Trump’s use of the emergency law illegal, unraveling the White House’s bid to hit trading partners with duties not seen in a century.
“There is absolutely a basis on which to challenge the use of [the International Emergency Economic Powers Act] for tariffs based on the Supreme Court’s own jurisprudence,” Liza Goitein, senior director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, said in an interview earlier this month. “There’s some likelihood of success on this lawsuit on that grounds.”
But any lawsuits could take months, if not longer, to reach a conclusion, unless the plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction to immediately stop Trump from collecting the duties.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance, the conservative legal group that filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s use of the emergency law to slap a 20 percent tariff on China, is not seeking an injunction because such decisions can be appealed and slow down the case, one of the group’s attorneys previously told POLITICO. But they do hope for a ruling by the end of the year that Trump’s action was unlawful and unconstitutional.