Trade court says Trump’s backup tariffs also illegal

Who said what

Thursday’s ruling dealt “yet another legal setback” to Trump’s “efforts to wage a trade war without the express permission of Congress,” The New York Times said. But the court “only explicitly blocked” collecting the tariff from two small businesses and Washington state, finding that the other 23 states in the lawsuit hadn’t paid any relevant tariffs. Another reason the ruling’s “immediate impact might be limited,” The Wall Street Journal said, is that the tariff expires July 24, at “which point the administration plans to pivot to different tariffs” that are “more routinely used and seen as legally durable.”

What next?

The ruling “weakens” Trump on his “core economic initiative” a week before he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss bilateral trade, The Washington Post said. It also “sets the stage for another protracted legal battle” over refunding the billions collected under another illegal tariff regime, Reuters said.