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US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

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Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#461

Post by aiforecastthway »

curt15 wrote: post #131
mangoman wrote: post #121

I'm not a lawyer or even close to it, but why wouldn't the trump admin use the tariff act of 1930? quote: "Whenever the President shall find as a fact that any foreign country places any burden or disadvantage upon the commerce of the United States by any of the unequal impositions or discriminations aforesaid, he shall, when he finds that the public interest will be served thereby, by proclamation specify and declar…

> (other than being almost 100 years old) Age alone shouldn't disqualify a law. The law above all other laws, aka the Constitution, is more than 200 years old.

In this case, age is not what disqualifies the law. Rather, what renders the law inapplicable to this situation is some combination of:

1. another statute that super-cedes the 1930 statute because it specifically limits Presidential emergency powers in the context of balance-of-trade issues. See around p. 35 of the slip opinion.

2. The Constitution itself, which limits Congress's ability to cede its own powers.

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#462

Post by paulddraper »

tnel77 wrote: post #12

Not saying this is good or bad, but this doesn’t seem surprising. Isn’t the point of our government structure to stop any one person from acting like a king. I’m surprised it took this long.

Yes and no.

There is a preamble that describes the point of the constitution and kingship is no where mentioned.

Also, kings involve hereditary selection, which is orthogonal to despotic rule which is what you are thinking of.

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#463

Post by rayiner »

KPGv2 wrote: post #348
boroboro4 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does affect trade (setting tariff high enough basically equals to no trade policy for example) with those countries and hence it is foreign policy.

If that's true, then all criminal law in the US is foreign policy because the existence of laws restricts people's decision to visit the US to commit crimes. Hell we don't even need to go that far afield: your logic implies all taxes are foreign policy, as they all affect foreign trade.

No, because criminal laws don’t have the primary function of influencing foreign countries.

Taxes can be for raising revenue, but they can also function as clubs for changing behavior. Cigarette taxes, for example, have the purpose of deterring people from smoking.

Tariffs similarly can serve as clubs against foreign countries. You might have a tariff on China to get them to change their domestic policies. In that capacity, the tariff is functioning as a foreign policy tool; the revenue generation is incidental.

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#464

Post by growlNark »

bruce511 wrote: post #365
worik wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any Canadians here to comment on the milk tariff policies? I have spent ten days of my life in Canada and I learnt of the tariffs by news reports concerning people driving to USA, loading up on milk, coming home. Tariffs are not always stupid. But in most cases there is a better alternative. E.g. Canada could subsidise domestic milk producers. (We used to do that in New Zealand) There is a lot of nonsense talked abou…

Naturally individuals can cross the border and get cheaper stuff. But in the grand scale of things, that's irrelevant. IMO tarifs are preferable to subsidies. Subsidies encourage over production, plus still places the industry at risk. Tarifs just incentivize purchasing local. Plus for whatever revenue there is, it's an income to govt coffers. Whereas a subsidy is an expense. And ultimately the cost is born by the co…

> Subsidies encourage over production

That's largely acceptable, and certainly preferable to underproduction, for resources that we simply can't do without. Dairy was (and still is) considered one of those resources as a superfood. Now maybe milk might not hold up anymore as being so critical to childhood nutrition (though I'm skeptical), but I think the reasoning behind it makes sense.

> Tarifs just incentivize purchasing local.

Sure, they also incentivize not eating. But commodification of basic resources is nothing new to americans, I suppose.

Some things are worth everyone pitching in for. Tariffs place the burden of living here on the individual. I don't really see any benefit from this.... fuck local businesses if they can't compete. The entire pitch of living here is that we'll let the market determine every aspect of our lives; why would we not double down when it came to letting businesses fail?

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#466

Post by mrtksn »

siliconc0w wrote: post #180

I wonder if this means businesses can request the courts order the government to repay their unconstitutionally levied duties - especially when it meant it basically destroyed their ability to do business.

Apparently US collected a record amount of tariffs in April, about $16B. So someone definitely paid that. Maybe for most consumer goods the companies ate that and took a hit until they figure out how to price things because TACO.

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#467

Post by EasyMark »

wlesieutre wrote: post #137
mangoman wrote: post #121

I'm not a lawyer or even close to it, but why wouldn't the trump admin use the tariff act of 1930? quote: "Whenever the President shall find as a fact that any foreign country places any burden or disadvantage upon the commerce of the United States by any of the unequal impositions or discriminations aforesaid, he shall, when he finds that the public interest will be served thereby, by proclamation specify and declar…

He would have to convince the courts that I don't like having a trade deficit with anyone somehow means our trading partners are "placing a burden or disadvantage upon the commerce of the United States by any of the unequal impositions or discriminations aforesaid"

Right he's claiming that a trade deficit is the same thing as a tariff, and he will get virtually only get cranks who will be his stooge to try and prove it in court and judges will laugh at them, because the two judges I know actually have a pretty good grasp on basic math and econ 101.

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#468

Post by rayiner »

tristan957 wrote: post #449
rayiner wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no “attacks on people’s voting rights.” It’s a canard Democrats trot out to energize their base, just like Republicans trot out lies about election fraud. For example, studies show voter ID doesn’t reduce turnout (but also doesn’t reduce fraud). https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/21/18230009/v... . Gerrymandering doesn’t affect the presidential election. But the GOP won the House popular vote by…

Gerrymandering can have an effect, but I'm not sure how to measure it. Gerrymandering contributes to voter disenfranchisement. If you have been disenfranchised for the 3 years before the presidential election, why would you then choose to participate in the elections in the 4th year? To me, that number has to be non-zero, but it isn't obvious if it's anything significant. For instance, how many Democrat supporters ju…

I’m a republican in Maryland. Am I “disenfranchised?” That terminology is just activist wordplay. It is insanely easy to vote in America.

Also, Trump is the one who performs better among your supposedly “disenfranchised” voters. The folks who didn’t vote in the last 3 elections were more likely to vote for Trump in 2024: https://amac.us/newsline/elections/trump-victory-explained-n.... The only group Harris won were super voters (who voted in all four of the most recent elections).

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#469

Post by seanmcdirmid »

PleasureBot wrote: post #415
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Executive orders are shot down by courts all the time. And it always starts in lower courts, with appeals going up to higher courts (both sides can appeal!). This is true for any president, Democrat or Republican, the judicial system is a check on executive power, with the understanding that the executive gets to nominate judges and congress gets to approve them. It is really weird how many people don't get this, and…

The discourse coming from the political right is clearly meant to attack the Judicial branch. They are going after what they call "Partisan judges" or "Activist judges" or "Radical leftist judges" or "Clinton and Obama appointees". They want to remove all judges who do not let them support whatever the administration wants to do.

Ya, it is going to be awkward when they start removing "Trump appointees."

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#470

Post by HumanOstrich »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #189
siliconc0w wrote: post #180

I wonder if this means businesses can request the courts order the government to repay their unconstitutionally levied duties - especially when it meant it basically destroyed their ability to do business.

Congressional Research Service: The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA): A Legal Overview - https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R45732.pdf - April 17th, 2023 Wikipedia: Sovereign immunity in the United States - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...

19 U.S.C. § 1514[1] provides for protests of customs decisions and judicial review under § 1515[2].

- § 1514 allows importers to protest CBP decisions on classification, valuation, duties, etc. within 180 days.

- § 1515 then provides that denied protests can be challenged by civil action in the Court of International Trade.

- These sections create the primary administrative exhaustion requirement for customs disputes.

28 U.S.C. § 1581[3] gives the Court of International Trade exclusive jurisdiction over customs matters.

- § 1581(a) specifically grants exclusive jurisdiction over § 1515 actions (denied protests).

- § 1581(i) provides residual jurisdiction over customs-related civil actions against the U.S.

- This exclusive jurisdiction means federal district courts generally cannot hear customs cases.

Tucker Act claims (28 U.S.C. § 1491[4]) allow recovery of improperly collected duties.

- While § 1491 doesn't mention customs, its broad language covering claims "founded upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress" has been interpreted to include illegal exactions.

- Case law (e.g., Aerolineas Argentinas v. United States[5]) recognizes Tucker Act jurisdiction for customs refunds when protest remedies are unavailable or inadequate.

- However, courts generally require exhaustion of protest procedures first, making Tucker Act claims a limited fallback option.

[1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1514

[2]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1515

[3]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1581

[4]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1491

[5]: https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/077/77.F3d....

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