Casey Mattox @CaseyMattox_
First tariff lawsuit filed.
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New Civil Liberties Alliance @NCLAlegal
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Trump’s Emergency Tariff Isn’t Legal. We’re Suing.
Today, we filed the first lawsuit challenging President Trump’s new tariff on all China imports. He imposed it under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)—a law that lets presidents freeze assets or block transactions during real national emergencies. It does not let them rewrite U.S. tariff law.
Congress has exclusive constitutional power to set tariffs. It already did so through detailed statutes. The President can’t sidestep that by invoking vague “emergency” authority that says nothing about tariffs.
Our client, Simplified, is a small Florida business owned by Emily Ley. She sells premium planners and home products that empower women. Her company imports goods from China that aren’t available here—and she’s already paid steep tariffs. The new Trump tariff would drive her costs through the roof and force her to raise prices or cut back.
Here’s the bottom line:
🔹 No president has ever used IEEPA this way—not even Trump in his first term.
🔹 This tariff violates the Constitution’s separation of powers.
🔹 The Major Questions Doctrine and the nondelegation doctrine make clear: No executive can seize legislative authority to impose economic policies of “vast political and economic significance” without a clear, explicit directive from Congress.
The law doesn’t give the President this power. The Constitution doesn’t allow it. And the courts shouldn’t tolerate it.
We’re asking the court to vacate the tariff and block its enforcement. Because if presidents can start taxing Americans by emergency order, the Constitution’s limits on power won’t mean much at all.
Full press release:
🔗 https://nclalegal.org/press_release/ncla-sues-to-stop-trump-admin-from-imposing-emergency-tariffs-that-congress-never-authorized/
https://twitter.com/CaseyMattox_/status/1907930822029750403