A panel of US federal judges has blocked President Donald Trump from imposing some of his highest tariffs on China and other trading partners, saying the president had “vastly overstepped” his ability under federal law to make those decisions.
The ruling, by the US Court of International Trade, “delivered an early yet significant setback to Mr Trump in his campaign to strike a series of agreements that reorient the nation’s trading relationships, setting up a legal fight that could soon reach the Supreme Court”, The New York Times said.
According to the Times, the central issue is Trump’s use of a 1977 federal economic emergency law to issue many of the controversial tariffs, including those imposed on Canada, Mexico and China, and his “reciprocal” rates on much of the rest of the world.
The White House has reacted strongly to the ruling, claiming unfair trade relationships had “decimated American communities, left our workers behind and weakened our industrial base”.
“It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency,” a spokesman said, adding that Trump would use “every lever of executive power to address this crisis”.
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