Trump administration appeals US trade court tariff ruling as aide labels it a ‘judicial coup’
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics and the second Trump administration.
The main news this morning is that a Manhattan-based court has blocked the president’s sweeping tariffs on global imports from coming into effect – a huge blow to an integral pillar of his plan for economic growth.
The US court of international trade said yesterday that Trump lacked the authority to use the emergency economic powers legislation that he cited when he unveiled additional taxes on foreign-made goods on what he called “liberation day” last month.
Tariffs usually require the approval of Congress – but the US president argued he had power to act because it was a “national emergency”.
The Trump White House filed an appeal against the judgment minutes after it was handed down.
“President Trump pledged to put America first, and the administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American greatness,” Trump’s spokesperson Kush Desai said.
Trump’s powerful deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, reacted to the federal court ruling by posting on X that “the judicial coup is out of control”.
We will have more reaction to the ruling from court of international trade in New York and other US politics stories throughout the day so stick with us.
Key events
Democrat launches investigation of Trump’s ‘meme coin dinner’ – report
The most senior Democrat on the House judiciary committee, Jamie Raskin, has reportedly launched an investigation into the private dinner that Donald Trump hosted for top investors in his meme coin, a novelty crypto token with no inherent value that has generated millions for the president and his family as buyers vie for access.
Here is an extract from the Washington Post’s story:
Rep. Jamie Raskin demanded Trump turn over the names of the guests who attended last week’s gala after pouring millions of dollars into the president’s crypto venture.
The Maryland congressman also pressed the president to disclose what steps he used to determine the source of the funds used to purchase the meme coin, citing concerns that some of the money could have come from foreign governments seeking to influence the White House.
“Publication of this list will also let the American people know who is putting tens of millions of dollars into our President’s pocket so we can start to figure out what — beyond virtually worthless memecoins — they are getting in exchange for all this money,” Raskin wrote in a letter, which was first reported by the Washington Post.
Ethics experts and Trump’s political opponents say the meme coin dinner was the starkest example to date of Trump’s willingness to blur the lines between his for-profit business interests and his office…
The White House has said the dinner poses no conflict of interest, because the president’s assets are in a blind trust managed by his sons.
A federal judge will consider on whether to further block the Trump administration from revoking Harvard university’s ability to enroll international students (see post at 10.38 for more details).
At a hearing in Boston, US district judge Allison Burroughs will weigh whether to extend a temporary order she issued last Friday that blocked the US department of homeland security from carrying out the revocation it issued a day earlier.
Harvard argues the Trump administration is retaliating against it for refusing to cede to its demands to control the school’s governance, curriculum and the “ideology” of its faculty and students.
The Trump team says Harvard’s hiring and admissions practices discriminate against conservatives and that it wants to safeguard civil rights and free speech.
Trump orders agencies to cut all federal ties with Harvard
Joseph Gedeon
Joseph Gedeon is a politics breaking news reporter based in Washington
The Donald Trump administration is set to order federal agencies to cancel all government contracts with Harvard University worth an estimated $100m.
A planned directive first seen by the New York Times set to circulate to agencies on Tuesday instructs officials to terminate existing deals and seek new suppliers, marking what the White House describes as a total break with Harvard after decades of collaboration.
The order comes by way of the General Service Administration (GSA) and affects contracts across nine federal departments, from health research to executive training programs.
Agencies must report back by early June on which agreements they plan to axe, according to the letter.
You can read the full story here:
While the Trump administration is targeting Chinese student’s visas, it continues to crackdown on universities it sees as not bending to its ideological will.
Trump has, for example, sought to pressure Harvard, the most prestigious of the American universities, into compliance on a range of issues.
These include tighter control over the university’s curriculum, information about foreign students and moves to curb protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza, which the Trump administration characterises as antisemitic.
The White House threatened to bar foreign students from Harvard in April, after the university refused to cave into pressure to alter its admissions, teaching and recruitment policies. The US education department froze about $3bn $2.3bn in federal funds to Harvard, something the university is challenging in court.
Since April, the administration has also attempted to ban the university from enrolling foreign students – a move temporarily blocked by federal courts.
US’s move to start revoking Chinese student visas is discriminatory, Beijing says
Beijing has angrily responded to the US’s plan to revoke visas from Chinese students, in what is seen as another effort by the Trump administration to restrict foreign students’ entry to American schools over claims they may somehow threaten domestic security.
“The US has unreasonably cancelled Chinese students’ visas under the pretext of ideology and national rights,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning said.
“China firmly opposes this and has lodged representations with the US.”
She added:
Such a politicised and discriminatory action lays bare the US lie that it upholds the so-called freedom and openness.
China is the second-largest country of origin for international students in the US, behind only India. In the 2023-2024 school year, more than 270,000 international students were from China, making up roughly a quarter of all foreign students in the US.
It is not clear how many of the Chinese students studying in the US could be affected by the latest move, which comes amid the ongoing trade war between Beijing and Washington.
US will ‘aggressively’ revoke visas of Chinese students, secretary of state says
The Trump administration has said it will “aggressively” revoke visas of Chinese students, one of the largest sources of revenue for American universities, in the latest attack on US higher education.
The announcement by secretary of state Marco Rubio came after China criticised his department’s decision a day earlier to suspend visa appointments for students worldwide at least temporarily…
The US will “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist party or studying in critical fields,” Rubio said in a statement.
“We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong,” he said.
You can read the full story here:
Elon Musk leaving role in the Trump administration
Now some news away from the tariff court ruling.
Elon Musk is leaving his role in the Trump administration as a “special advisor” to the president after spearheading a tumultuous drive to shrink the size of the US government as part of the department of government efficiency.
Musk’s term in his role was due to expire this month, but the world’s richest man’s announcement that he was getting back to business follows a rash of social media posts and interviews, in which Musk criticised Trump’s tax spending bill.
“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk wrote on X.
“The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
The billionaire had for weeks been signalling his intent to spend less time in Washington and more on his businesses, Tesla, SpaceX and xAI. It’s a drastic turnaround for Musk, who plowed $200m into Trump’s campaign and dedicated most of the last year to promoting Trump and far-right ideology online, as Nick Robins-Early writes.
The White House has 10 days to complete the process of trying to halt the tariffs, which were imposed to reverse the US’s massive and longstanding trade deficits, although most of these levies are currently suspended anyway.
Any legal challenge to the ruling will have to be heard at the US court of appeals for the federal circuit in Washington DC, and ultimately the US supreme court.
Over the last few months, Trump has introduced a confusing and evolving slate of tariffs against specific countries – such as China – and industries that the president says are negatively impacting America’s trade.
Many of his harshest tariffs have been paused, however, and some exemptions have been made as countries around the world have launched charm offensives to try to curry favour with the US president.
What has the global market reaction been like?
Financial markets, on the whole, have cheered the ruling. The US dollar rallied following the court’s order, surging against currencies such as the euro, yen and the Swiss franc in particular. Wall Street futures rose and equities across Asia also rose.
The UK’s FTSE 100 blue chip index has ticked up 0.1%, while the German Dax rallied 0.9%. France’s CAC 40 has risen 1%. Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs, in contrast, shook global financial markets and caused massive uncertainty.
You can read the latest market reaction in our business live blog.
What was actually said in the federal court ruling?
Here is what the three-judge panel at the New York-based court of international trade said when it blocked Donald Trump from imposing sweeping global tariffs on imports.
“The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs,” the court wrote, referring to the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act that Trump cited to justify the tariffs.
“The court does not pass upon the wisdom or likely effectiveness of the president’s use of tariffs as leverage. That use is impermissible not because it is unwise or ineffective, but because (federal law) does not allow it,” the panel said in the decision.
The court also blocked a different set of levies the Trump administration imposed on China, Mexico and Canada, for what the White House said was in response to the unacceptable flow of immigrants and synthetic opioids across the US border.
Trump administration appeals US trade court tariff ruling as aide labels it a ‘judicial coup’
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics and the second Trump administration.
The main news this morning is that a Manhattan-based court has blocked the president’s sweeping tariffs on global imports from coming into effect – a huge blow to an integral pillar of his plan for economic growth.
The US court of international trade said yesterday that Trump lacked the authority to use the emergency economic powers legislation that he cited when he unveiled additional taxes on foreign-made goods on what he called “liberation day” last month.
Tariffs usually require the approval of Congress – but the US president argued he had power to act because it was a “national emergency”.
The Trump White House filed an appeal against the judgment minutes after it was handed down.
“President Trump pledged to put America first, and the administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American greatness,” Trump’s spokesperson Kush Desai said.
Trump’s powerful deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, reacted to the federal court ruling by posting on X that “the judicial coup is out of control”.
We will have more reaction to the ruling from court of international trade in New York and other US politics stories throughout the day so stick with us.
