Meet The Little-Known Federal Court That Tried To Upend Trump’s Tariff Agenda

Two Republican-appointed judges and a Democrat-appointee on a little-known court issued the first ruling blocking President Donald Trump’s tariffs using emergency powers on Wednesday.

The United States Court of International Trade (CIT), which sits in New York City, considers only questions related to customs and international trade laws.

Its origins date back to 1890, when Congress established a Board of General Appraisers to hear issues related to tariffs and imports in an effort to reduce the caseload for federal courts. Congress replaced the board with the United States Customs Court in 1926, gradually granting it more judicial powers in the following decades and declaring it an Article III court in 1956, according to the Federal Judicial Center.

Congress established the CIT in its current form through the Customs Courts Act of 1980.

The three-judge panel that held Trump did not have authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) to impose his sweeping reciprocal tariffs includes Judge Gary S. Katzmann, an Obama appointee; Judge Timothy M. Reif, a Trump appointee; and Judge Jane A. Restani, a Reagan appointee.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit temporarily put the CIT’s ruling on hold. However, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. also blocked Trump’s tariffs in a separate case.

Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs in April, which set a baseline tariff of 10% on all imports and higher tariffs for dozens of countries. Earlier tariffs placed on China, Mexico and Canada in February over illegal immigration and fentanyl were also blocked by the court.

“Because of the Constitution’s express allocation of the tariff power to Congress … we do not read IEEPA to delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President,” the court held. “We instead read IEEPA’s provisions to impose meaningful limits on any such authority it confers.”

The CIT “rarely issues decisions that receive a lot of attention,” Stanford law professor Alan Sykes told the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Most are technical decisions regarding agency determinations that concern tariff classification, antidumping and countervailing duties, and the like — all cases with fairly narrow implications,” he said. “More significant decisions typically come from the federal circuit, to which yesterday’s decision can be appealed.”

The court ruled in response to lawsuits filed by the conservative Liberty Justice Center and by 12 states. At least five similar lawsuits on the issue are still pending, according to Reuters, including others brought by conservative legal groups like the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) and the Pacific Legal Foundation.

George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin, who worked with the Liberty Justice Center to file one of the cases on behalf of five American businesses, told the DCNF the lawsuit involves “an enormous unconstitutional power grab that the court rightly struck down.”

“The president does not have unlimited power to impose tariffs on any country, for any reason, in any amount, any time he feels like it,” he said. “Two of the three judges on the panel were appointed by Republican presidents, including one (Judge Reif) appointed by Trump.”

Somin noted that the administration has been seeking to transfer all cases challenging the tariffs to the CIT.

“They lost in the court they themselves wanted to be in!,” he told the DCNF.

Some opponents to the tariffs tried to keep their cases out of the CIT, arguing it does not have jurisdiction because IEEPA does not authorize tariffs.

“Until a month ago, the CIT had never heard a single IEEPA case in the 47 years that the statute has been in effect,” the NCLA wrote in a May 8 amicus brief.

NCLA President Mark Chenoweth previously called the administration’s efforts to transfer its own client’s case challenging China tariffs out of a Florida district court a “cynical attempt to forum-shop its tax on American citizens.”

“The government is trying to transfer their case from Florida to a New York specialty court that could have jurisdiction only if the tariffs were lawful,” NCLA senior litigation counsel Andrew Morris wrote in a statement. “The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida should deny the government’s motion to transfer.”

Trump has argued the tariffs will limit the “threat” posed by the trade deficit and protect American workers.

The Trump administration already indicated it will file an appeal, which would first be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C and finally by the Supreme Court.

“The idea that the fentanyl crisis in America is not an emergency is so appalling to me that I’m sure that when we appeal, that this decision will be overturned,” Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett said on Fox Business Thursday morning, calling it a ruling by “activist judges.”

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller reacted to the ruling by saying the “judicial coup is out of control.”

“We are living under a judicial tyranny,” he wrote on X Thursday.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/CSPAN)

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