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Donald Trump was blocked by a federal court on Wednesday from imposing a sprawling set of import taxes on nearly every country.
The ruling was in response to two separate lawsuits by businesses and state officials who accused the president of overstepping his authority to issue those tariffs, leaving them with heavy financial losses.
Trump had used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), which gives the president broad powers to “regulate a variety of economic transaction following a declaration of national emergency.” Although no president had previously used the law in a tariff situation, Trump invoked the IEEPA to impose his steep global tariffs. In its ruling, the three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of International Tradeunanimously found that Congress did not give the president“unbounded” tariff authorityin the IEEPA.
The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling.
Last month, Trump and his allies announced that April 2 was a historic “Liberation Day” for the United States, with a baseline 10-percent tariff on all imported goods and the White House releasinga listof nations and their respective tariff percentage, many of which cleared 50 percent.
Bizarrely, Trump even placedtariffson theremote Australian territoryHeard and McDonald Islands — an outpost inhabited only by penguins and other Antarctic wildlife.
As financial marketstanked, the economycontractedin the first quarter of 2025, and major financial institutions warned that the president’s trade war will lead to higher inflation, unemployment, and instability, Trump began to roll back his tariff agenda following his lofty claims. The presidentsignificantly reducedthe potentially ruinous tariffs he had implemented against China after he paused his initial “Liberation Day” tariffs. In a seeming reversal over the weekend, Trump threatened to impose a 50 percent tariff on all goods from the European Union, but then backed off days later.
On Wednesday, the president erupted when a reporter asked him to respond to his nickname emerging from Wall Street — “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out) — as a result of the Trump’s tariff flip-flopping.
“Six months ago, this country was stone cold, dead. We had a dead country. We had a country, people didn’t think it was going to survive,” Trump claimed, growing increasingly inflamed. “We were doing no business because of the tariff, because it was so high. But I knew that. But don’t ever say what you said. That’s a nasty question.”
