Libertarian group sues President Trump over 'liberation day' tariffs

A libertarian group on Monday sued President Donald Trump over his "liberation day" tariffs, claiming the president overstepped his authority to do so.

The filing marks the first lawsuit the president has faced over the wide-reaching tariffs. Trump announced steep tariffs on certain U.S. trading partners on April 2, which he later changed to temporarily imposing 10% tariffs on all trading partners for 90 days. 

Trump imposed the tariffs through the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which allows presidents to impose necessary economic sanctions to fight an “unusual and extraordinary threat." But no president has used the act to impose tariffs before. 

“Our system is not set up so that one person in the system can have the power to impose taxes across the world economy. That’s not how our constitutional republic works,” Jeffrey Schwab, Liberty Justice Center senior counsel, told The Hill. “And so that is the thing that we’re very concerned about. Because today it’s tariffs, but could it be something else in the future?"

Liberty Justice Center filed the lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade on behalf of five small businesses that claim they have been impacted by the tariffs. Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, also joined the suit. 

“If starting the biggest trade war since the Great Depression based on a law that doesn’t even mention tariffs is not an unconstitutional usurpation of legislative power, I don’t know what is,” Somin said in a statement.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.