States Ask Court to Declare Trump Tariffs Illegal

States opposed to President Trump's tariffs are taking the administration to court. A coalition of a dozen states, most of them led by Democrats, filed a lawsuit Wednesday asking a federal court to declare the tariffs illegal, CNBC reports. The lawsuit was filed in the US Court of International Trade in New York.

• The lawsuit "argues that Congress has not granted the president the authority to impose these tariffs and therefore the administration violated the law by imposing them through executive orders, social media posts, and agency orders," New York Attorney General Letitia James' office said in a statement.

• "The president does not have the power to raise taxes on a whim, but that's exactly what President Trump has been doing with these tariffs," James said. "His tariffs are unlawful and if not stopped, they will lead to more inflation, unemployment, and economic damage."
• The other states suing are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont. California Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a separate lawsuit last week.
• Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes described Trump's tariff scheme as "insane," saying it was "not only economically reckless—it is illegal," the AP reports. She added: "No matter what the White House claims, tariffs are a tax that will be passed on to Arizona consumers."
• The states say that the president does not have the power to arbitrarily impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and no other president has done so in the five decades the law has been around, CNBC reports.
• "By claiming the authority to impose immense and ever-changing tariffs on whatever goods entering the United States he chooses, for whatever reason he finds convenient to declare an emergency, the President has upended the constitutional order and brought chaos to the American economy," the lawsuit states.

(More tariffs stories.)