(ARL Now)—An Arlington law professor is representing a lawsuit attempting to end President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs.
Ilya Somin, a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, is serving as co-counsel for litigation filed shortly after Trump’s 10% tariff on all imports from most countries went into effect earlier this month.
The lawsuit challenges Trump’s power to make unilateral trade decisions by declaring a decades-old network of international agreements to be an “emergency.” Arguing that the “Liberation Day” decisions lack a legal basis and overstep the president’s constitutional authority, plaintiffs raise concerns about consequences for the U.S. economy and economies around the world.
“If the administration wins this case and other cases like it that have been brought against him, the president can essentially impose any tariff, on any country, in any amount, at any time he wants,” Somin told ARLnow. “That means trade agreements with the United States are worth little or nothing, because the president can violate them any time he feels like it.”
The lawsuit, filed on April 14 in the U.S. Court of International Trade, takes aim at the April 2 executive order that launched this month’s series of ping-ponging trade decisions.
Trump’s order references the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows the president to exercise certain economic controls during national emergencies. Trump argued that factors including “large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits” create “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States.”
“That threat has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States in the domestic economic policies of key trading partners and structural imbalances in the global trading system,” the president wrote. “I hereby declare a national emergency with respect to this threat.”
The civil complaint, which Somin and the Liberty Justice Center filed on behalf of several U.S. businesses that rely heavily on foreign imports, characterizes Trump’s actions as an “unprecedented power grab.”
“His claimed emergency is a figment of his own imagination: trade deficits, which have persisted for decades without causing economic harm, are not an emergency,” plaintiffs wrote. “Nor do these trade deficits constitute an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat.’”
The lawsuit argues that because of this, the executive order fails to meet the standards of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Moreover, if Congress intentionally allowed the president this much power when it passed the act in 1977, lawmakers overstepped their bounds in delegating authority, plaintiffs argue.
There is a reason, the complaint says, that no other president has attempted to single-handedly realign the nation’s economy in this way.
“Presidential authority to unilaterally impose worldwide tariffs, if Congress were to grant it at all, must be granted clearly and unmistakably — not through some implication so vague and indeterminate that it went unnoticed by every other President for nearly five decades,” plaintiffs wrote.
Given the immense implications of the president’s decisions, “if there are any constitutional limits to delegation at all, they apply here.”
The lawsuit is still making its way through the courts. A judge denied a request for a temporary restraining order last week, but plaintiffs are still seeking a preliminary injunction to freeze the tariffs as the litigation moves forward.
Whatever the outcome of the case, Somin believes it may have resounding implications both for the global economy and for the separation of powers between the president and Congress.
“He’s trying to basically take this power, which the Constitution gives to Congress, and take it entirely for himself,” he said. “Other presidents, to be sure, have abused separation of powers in various ways — including Biden, in some cases — but there is no modern parallel for the immense scope of this particular power grab that he’s doing.”
Still, Somin acknowledged parallels between Trump’s legal arguments in this case and other recent instances where this administration has attempted to dramatically expand its powers by declaring national security threats.
The Trump administration has used wartime powers under the Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of migrants to El Salvador. In Arlington, meanwhile, a Rosslyn resident was one of several pro-Palestinian activists and students arrested because of alleged “adverse foreign policy consequences.”
Various battles over these decisions — including a showdown between Trump and the Supreme Court over the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — are continuing to play out.
“The person who is being bold here is Trump, who is massively abusing his power and engaging in a gigantic power grab,” Somin said. “I can’t be certain the courts will stop it, but if courts are willing to actually follow the Constitution and other laws that apply here, that’s what they should do.”
The next hearing in this case is scheduled for May 13.