White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt decries “egregious decision” from court regarding Trump administration’s tariffs.
The White House said the Trump administration is facing “another example of judicial overreach” after the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled Wednesday that President Donald Trump exceeded his authority with tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that “America cannot function if President Trump or any other president, for that matter, has their sensitive, diplomatic or trade negotiations railroaded by activist judges.
“President Trump is in the process of rebalancing America’s trading agreements with the entire world, bringing tens of billions of dollars in tariff revenues to our country, and finally ending the United States of America from being ripped off. These judges are threatening to undermine the credibility of the United States on the world stage,” Leavitt said.
“The administration has already filed an emergency motion for a stay pending appeal and an immediate administrative stay to strike down this egregious decision, but ultimately, the Supreme Court must put an end to this for the sake of our Constitution and our country,” she added.
FEDERAL COURT REJECTS TRUMP’S ‘UNBOUNDED AUTHORITY’ TO IMPOSE WORLDWIDE TARIFFS
President Donald Trump looks on as he takes questions from the press during a swearing-in ceremony for the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, May 28. (Reuters/Leah Millis / Reuters)
The court said Wednesday that “The Constitution assigns Congress the exclusive powers to ‘lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,’ and to ‘regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.’”
“The question in the two cases before the court is whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (‘IEEPA’) delegates these powers to the President in the form of authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world,” the court continued. “The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder.”
The three judges who ruled on the matter were appointed by former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, as well as Trump himself.
TAIWAN PROMISES TO BUY MORE AMERICAN GOODS, UNDER THREAT OF 32% TRUMP TARIFF
President Donald Trump holds up a chart of “reciprocal tariffs” while speaking at the White House on April 2, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Leavitt said Thursday that “using his full and proper legal authority, President Trump imposed universal tariffs and reciprocal tariffs on Liberation Day to address the extraordinary threat to our national security and economy posed by large and persistent annual U.S goods trade deficits.”
“President Trump correctly believes that America cannot function safely long term if we are unable to scale advanced domestic manufacture and capacity, have our own secure critical supply chains and our defense industrial base is dependent on foreign adversaries. Three judges of the U.S. Court of International Trade disagreed and brazenly abused their judicial power to usurp the authority of President Trump, to stop him from carrying out the mandate that the American people gave him,” she added.
Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, speaks during a news conference at the White House on May 19. (Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
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“Nationwide injunctions ordered against the first Trump administration, Trump 1.0, account for more than half of the injunctions issued in this country since 1963. And President Trump had more injunctions in one full month of office in February than Joe Biden had in three years,” she also said.
FOX Business’ Greg Wehner and Bill Mears contributed to this report.
