(Business Today)—A legal advocacy group in the US has sued President Donald Trump’s administration over the sweeping tariffs. The group asked the US Court of International Trade to block Trump’s tariffs on US’ trading partners.
The lawsuit, filed by the nonpartisan Liberty Justice Center on behalf of five small American businesses that import goods from countries targeted by the tariffs, challenged Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs as well as the duties separately levied against China.
“No one person should have the power to impose taxes that have such vast global economic consequences. The Constitution gives the power to set tax rates — including tariffs — to Congress, not the President,” said Liberty Justice Center senior counsel Jeffrey Schwab in a statement.
White House spokesman Harrison Fields, defending Trump, said the President’s plan involves levelling the playing field for businesses and workers to address the country’s “national emergency of chronic trade deficits”.
Another small business owner has filed a similar lawsuit in Florida federal court, urging the judge to block Trump tariffs.
Trump imposed a 10 per cent base tariff on all its trading partners, with different rates levied on different countries. He imposed a 26 per cent tariff on India, who said it was not going to retaliate. However, he imposed a 145 per cent tariff on China, who also levied 125 per cent tariff on US goods, escalating the trade tensions between both the countries.
Meanwhile, sectors like automobiles have been tariffed separately. Trump imposed a tariff of 25 per cent on the sector. Meanwhile, he announced that he will soon announce tariffs on pharmaceutical and semiconductor sectors, which he had initially skipped.
The Trump administration is investigating the importation of pharmaceuticals and semiconductors before the tariffs are levied.