A US appeals court has ruled that most
of President Trump's tariffs are
illegal. The judges said while the
president had considerable powers to
respond to national emergencies, these
didn't explicitly include the power to
impose tariffs or taxes. President Trump
used a power under the International
Emergency Economic Powers Act when he
implemented his reciprocal tariffs which
have been a cornerstone of his foreign
policy. The court said the duties can
remain in place until the middle of
October to allow for the case to be
heard by the Supreme Court. The decision
doesn't affect tariffs issued under
other legal authorities such as those on
steel or aluminium.
Mr. Trump has called the ruling
incorrect. He posted on his truth social
platform earlier saying all tariffs are
still in effect, calling the court
highly partisan and said that
incorrectly said the tariff should be
removed. But he said they know the
United States of America will win in the
end. Mr. Trump went on to say, "If these
tariffs ever went away, it would be a
total disaster for the country." Now, he
says, "With the help of the Supreme
Court, we will use them to the benefit
of our nation and make America rich,
strong, and powerful again." Our North
America correspondent, Anthony Zurka,
has been following the developments. I
spoke to him a little earlier. Mr. Trump
says he has the right, the power, the
responsibility under national
emergencies to use tariffs to protect
America. What did the court have to say
about that?
>> Well, the court disagreed and honestly
it's the second court now to disagree.
Uh the lower court beneath the appellet
court also held that this was an
impermissible overreach on the part of
the president that he was reading too
much into this emergency law that dates
back to the 1970s and that it didn't
give the president authorization to
basically impose uh tariffs on whatever
country he wants whenever he wants and
whatever extent he wants. They said uh
that the Supreme Court president that
they were looking at suggests that for a
president to have this kind of broad
power really has to be grounded in a law
and Congress has to explicitly say uh
that the president has this sort of
authority, not just a president
interpreting it and what they said was a
very strained manner.
>> These national emergencies that Mr.
Trump said gave him the authority to do
that. What was he referring to? Uh well
that's the text of the law gives the
president in national emergencies
authority to to uh impose economic
sanctions on other countries. Past
presidents have used it to do that. For
instance on Iran after uh the hostage
crisis. Jimmy Carter used it to impose
sanctions on that nation. Other
countries have used it uh to impose
various sorts of restrictions and
penalties. But no one has read no
president has read a law as broadly as
Donald Trump has. But he's saying that
the emergency power that is contained
within this law gives him this kind of
authority.
>> The Supreme Court then for this Anthony
next.
>> Uh it looks like it. Obviously the court
could decide not to take up this case,
but I don't think there's anyone who
believes that they won't look at this.
You have to remember the court is going
to move as fast or as slow as it wants,
but it goes back into formal session at
the beginning of October. And this is
certainly going to be one of the first
cases on this list to look at on whether
to agree to hear it. Uh, and then as I
mentioned, the Supreme Court has in the
past had a skeptical view of
presidential expansions of power based
on what they view as flimsy legislative
grounds. They struck down a couple of
Joe Biden's big uh policy initiatives,
including restricting greenhouse gas
from power plants and forgiving student
loan debt for millions of Americans,
saying exactly what the lower court said
about Trump's tariffs, which is that
there was no grounding in law that the
president had been over interterpreting
the power granted him in these laws that
that Biden cited at the time. It
>> it is a largely conservative Supreme
Court at the moment. Will that be giving
Mr. Trump some confidence that he'll win
out here.
>> I think Donald Trump certainly views it
that way. Uh there are six conservative
Supreme Court justices out of the nine.
Three of them actually were appointed by
Donald Trump in his first term. Uh and
if you look at this appellet court
ruling, there were only three
Republicanappointed justices on that 11
judge court. So, maybe the White House
looks at that and and and sees now
they're going to get to friendlier
territory and they might have a more
sympathetic audience from these
conservative justices. Although, I
mentioned before that it's conservative
principles. It's conservative justices
who had already said that uh that uh
presidents can't strain interpretation
of of law in order to create new
policies, broad new policies. So,
that'll be an interesting test for this
court. Finally, Anthony, and I don't
mean to to put you on the spot here, and
I don't want you to speculate too
wildly, but several deals have been
struck with many international partners
based on these tariffs. Does this
completely kaibosh all of those
agreements? Well, it it very well could
and it depends on uh how the Supreme
Court ultimately interprets this. But
there's going to be a lot of pressure on
this court not to rule against Donald
Trump. But you're already hearing it
from people like the Treasury Secretary
Scott Bass saying that it would be
incredibly disruptive if now after all
these months with tariffs and all the
revenue that are being brought in to
reverse it, strike it down, and maybe
even make the federal government give
this money back. Uh that would be an
enormous burden and incredibly
disruptive to the American economy.