WASHINGTON | Sept. 14, 2026 — The people who know Section 301 best are telling the U.S. Court of International Trade that the administration is using the statute in a way Congress never designed it to be used.
Among those who filed is Ambassador Alan Wm. Wolff, who drafted the initial version of what became Section 301 and served as the principal draftsman of the Trade Act of 1974 during its consideration by Congress. He is joined on the brief by Ambassador Carla A. Hills, who administered Section 301 as U.S. Trade Representative, and Warren Maruyama, a former USTR general counsel who helped draft major congressional revision to the U.S. trade law.
The Liberty Justice Center assembled and coordinated amici with deep experience in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Section 301, trade remedies, forced-labor policy, administrative law and international trade. Their briefs reinforce the plaintiffs’ merits brief filed in late August and provide the Court with additional historical, legal and factual grounds for rejecting the tariffs.
Wolff’s participation is historically unique. As the Treasury Department’s lead international trade lawyer, he drafted the initial proposal that became Section 301. He later served as the principal administration draftsman of the Trade Act of 1974, representing the Nixon and Ford administrations throughout its consideration by Congress. He subsequently served as deputy special trade representative and, more recently, as deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization.
Hills and Maruyama bring equally direct experience with the statute’s later development and implementation. As U.S. Trade Representative, Hills oversaw major Section 301 actions and negotiations, including the U.S.–Japan Semiconductor Agreements. Maruyama helped draft the 1984 and 1988 trade laws and participated in Section 301 actions across several administrations.
Also filing in support of the challenge is Ed Gresser, vice president of the Progressive Policy Institute and a former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Policy and Economics. At USTR, Gresser oversaw the agency’s economic research and use of trade data and chaired the interagency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Gresser’s brief focuses on the profound mismatch between the conduct USTR identified and the tariffs it imposed. It challenges both the factual basis for concluding that the policies of 60 different economies burden U.S. commerce and the administration’s decision to respond to those purported burdens with tariffs of extraordinary breadth and cost.
“The people who know Section 301 best are telling the Court that this is not what Congress designed it to do,” said Sara Albrecht, Chairman and CEO of the Liberty Justice Center. “Ambassador Wolff drafted the initial version of the statute. Ambassador Hills administered it as U.S. Trade Representative. Warren Maruyama helped write the laws that later revised it, and Ed Gresser oversaw USTR’s economic research and trade data. Their combined experience confirms what we argued from the beginning: Section 301 is an important trade-remedy law, but it is not a blank check for worldwide tariffs or a substitute for the IEEPA tariffs the Supreme Court struck down.”
The Liberty Justice Center filed the first lawsuit challenging the Section 301 tariffs on behalf of Burlap & Barrel, a U.S. online spice retailer, and Collective Horology, an independent watch retailer. After the Court consolidated the challenges, LJC joined the plaintiffs’ steering committee and helped develop the merits arguments now before the Court.
The challenges are now consolidated as In re Section 301 Forced Labor Cases. Because the tariffs reach goods representing 99.4% of all U.S. imports, the stakes extend far beyond any single business or industry. LJC continues to play a central role in the litigation, and the experts it assembled will provide critical support for the arguments the Court will consider on September 30: that the administration cannot transform a targeted trade-enforcement statute into a sweeping global tariff authority.
The amicus briefs filed in support of the challenge are available here.
More information about the Liberty Justice Center’s Section 301 tariffs challenge is available here, and all of LJC’s tariff-related work is available here.
LJC continues to fight for the return of unlawfully collected IEEPA tariffs and to challenge the administration’s Section 122 tariffs. We will continue defending American businesses whenever the administration imposes tariffs beyond the authority Congress provided.