Government lawyers have asked courts to hold off on enforcing a ruling that found his “liberation day” tariffs were illegal, saying it has disarmed President Trump’s negotiating power as he tries to strike deals with foreign trading partners.
“The injunction threatens to unwind months of foreign-policy decision-making and sensitive diplomatic negotiations,” Daniel Winik, a Justice Department lawyer, told the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
He said foreign and economic policy decisions belong in the political branches of the executive and the legislature, not the courts.
And he defended the legality of the tariffs, saying Congress intended to give the president wide-ranging powers to slap higher duties on other countries’ goods.
Mr. Winik also said the Court of International Trade, which enjoined the tariffs on Wednesday, ignored key evidence from Cabinet secretaries defending the importance of the tariffs.
At issue is Mr. Trump’s claim of emergency powers to impose tariffs universally and then additional tariffs specifically on goods from China, Canada and Mexico in retaliation for what the president sees as too-flimsy cooperation on drug trafficking.
A three-judge panel of the court ruled that the Constitution gives Congress the power to lay and collect duties, and Capitol Hill can’t give that power away, at least to the extent Mr. Trump claims.
They gave the administration 10 days to erase the tariffs.
The administration has already filed an appeal with the Federal Circuit appeals court and has now asked both the trade court and the circuit court for a stay of the trade court’s decision.
