MORE JUDICIAL TYRANNY: Fed Court Strikes Down Trump’s Tariffs But Leaves Them in Place for Now

Federal Circuit 7-4 finds President Trump’s tariffs violate the law that authorizes the President to “regulate” importation.

President Trump and AG Pam Bondi are appealing to the SUPREME COURT to ensure the sweeping tariffs can remain in effect after activist judges struck them down.

Off to the Supreme Court.

President Trump: “Today a Highly Partisan Appeals Court incorrectly said that our Tariffs should be removed, but they know the United States of America will win in the end.”

The U.S. government collected over $152 billion in tariff revenue (customs duties and related taxes) as of July 2025, more than doubling the $78 billion collected in the same period of the previous fiscal year, with continued growth seen into August 2025. Not only has it been a huge windfall for the US, but it has been a powerful negotiating tool in advancing America’s interests across the world.

We have a captured and corrupt judiciary.

A federal appeals court just ruled Trump’s tariffs “illegal.” It’s time for the Trump admin to get this under control.

They are attempting to stall everything Trump does.

They have no right dictating or influencing foreign policy. pic.twitter.com/N41xAuccYz

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) August 29, 2025

THE APPELLATE COURT MAJORITY TARIFF DECISION WAS WRONG

The appellate court majority that ruled against most of the president's tariffs has it wrong.  Whether you like tariffs or not, the act at issue does, in fact, grant the president broad powers to declare an emergency.  Even…

— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) August 29, 2025

Court Finds Trump’s Tariffs an Illegal Use of Emergency Power, but Leaves Them in Place for Now

By: The Associated Press, Aug 20253,281

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump had no legal right to impose sweeping tariffs on almost every country on earth but left in place for now his effort to build a protectionist wall around the American economy.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled Trump wasn’t legally allowed to declare national emergencies and impose import taxes on almost every country on earth, a ruling that largely upheld a May decision by a specialized federal trade court in New York.

“It seems unlikely that Congress intended to … grant the President unlimited authority to impose tariffs,” the judges wrote in a 7-4 ruling.

But they did not strike down the tariffs immediately, allowing his administration time to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The president vowed to do just that. “If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America,” Trump wrote on his social medial platform.

ADVERTISEMENT

White House spokesman Kush Desai said Trump had acted lawfully, and “we look forward to ultimate victory on this matter.”

An attorney for small businesses affected by the tariffs, on the other hand, said the ruling shows Trump doesn’t have unlimited power to impose tariffs on his own. “This decision protects American businesses and consumers from the uncertainty and harm caused by these unlawful tariffs,” said Jeffrey Schwab, director of litigation at the Liberty Justice Center.

Putting pressure on allies

The ruling complicates Trump’s ambitions to upend decades of American trade policy completely on his own. Trump has alternative laws for imposing import taxes, but they would limit the speed and severity with which he could act. His tariffs — and the erratic way he’s rolled them out — have shaken global markets, alienated U.S. trading partners and allies and raised fears of higher prices and slower economic growth.

But he’s also used the levies to pressure the European Union, Japan and other countries into accepting one-sided trade deals and to bring tens of billions of dollars into the federal Treasury to help pay for the massive tax cuts he signed into law July 4.

“While existing trade deals may not automatically unravel, the administration could lose a pillar of its negotiating strategy, which may embolden foreign governments to resist future demands, delay implementation of prior commitments, or even seek to renegotiate terms,” Ashley Akers, senior counsel at the Holland & Knight law firm and a former Justice Department trial lawyer, said before the appeals court decision.

The government has argued that if the tariffs are struck down, it might have to refund some of the import taxes that it’s collected, delivering a financial blow to the U.S. Treasury.

“It would be 1929 all over again, a GREAT DEPRESSION!” Trump said in a previous post on Truth Social.

A dissent from the judges who disagreed with Friday’s ruling clears a possible legal path for Trump, concluding that the 1977 law allowing for emergency actions “is not an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority under the Supreme Court’s decisions,” which have allowed the legislature to grant some tariffing authorities to the president.

Revenue from tariffs now totals $159 billion, more than double what it was at the same point the year before. Indeed, the Justice Department warned in a legal filing this month that revoking the tariffs could mean “financial ruin” for the United States.

What tariffs are in question

The ruling involves two sets of import taxes, both of which Trump justified by declaring a national emergency under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA):

— The sweeping tariffs he announced April 2 — “Liberation Day,’’ he called it — when he imposed “reciprocal’’ tariffs of up to 50% on countries with which the United States runs trade deficits and a “baseline’’ 10% tariff on just about everyone else. Those tariff rates have since been revised by Trump, in some cases after trade negotiations, and generally went into effect Aug. 7. The national emergency underlying the tariffs, Trump said, was the long-running gap between what the U.S. sells and what it buys from the rest of the world. The president started to levy modified the tariff rates in August, but goods from countries with which the U.S. runs a surplus also face the taxes.

— The “trafficking tariffs’’ he announced Feb. 1 on imports from Canada, China and Mexico and later refined. These were designed to get those countries to do more to stop what he declared a national emergency: the illegal flow of drugs and immigrants across their borders into the United States.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to impose taxes, including tariffs. But over decades, lawmakers have ceded authorities to the president, and Trump has made the most of the power vacuum.

But Trump’s assertion that IEEPA essentially gives him unlimited power to tax imports quickly drew legal challenges — at least seven cases. No president had ever used the law to justify tariffs, though IEEPA had been used frequently to impose export restrictions and other sanctions on U.S. adversaries such as Iran and North Korea.

The plaintiffs argued that the emergency power law does not authorize the use of tariffs.

They also noted that the trade deficit hardly meets the definition of an “unusual and extraordinary’’ threat that would justify declaring an emergency under the law. The United States, after all, has run trade deficits — in which it buys more from foreign countries than it sells them — for 49 straight years and in good times and bad.

Emergency powers