Small businesses sue to block Trump’s latest tariffs

Two groups of small businesses have filed lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump’s newest round of global tariffs – marking the latest legal pushback against the administration’s trade policies.The tariffs, announced Thursday and implemented as temporary prior duties expired, impose 10% to 12.5% levies on imports from about 60 trading partners under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The administration justified the measures by citing those countries’ alleged failures to effectively ban goods produced with forced labor. The duties cover the vast majority of U.S. imports, with limited exceptions.
The suits were filed Friday: One was brought by Learning Resources, an educational toy company that previously joined successful challenges to earlier Trump tariffs, along with several other small firms. 
The second was filed by New York-based spice retailer Burlap & Barrel and California watch seller Collective Horology. Both cases were filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade.
The plaintiffs are represented in one of the cases by the Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian group that helped overturn Trump’s earlier emergency tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act at the Supreme Court. 
The lawsuits argue the administration imposed near-uniform tariffs across disparate economies without the country-specific findings and reasoned explanations required by Section 301. They seek to halt collection of the duties and obtain refunds.
“Forced labor is morally indefensible, but an important objective does not give the government permission to ignore the law,” center Chairwoman and CEO Sara Albrecht said in a statement. The group described the new tariffs as a rapid replacement for measures that courts had previously constrained.
The White House has not commented on the matter.
The suits mark the latest chapter in ongoing litigation over Trump’s tariff agenda, which has faced repeated court challenges from businesses and states since early in his second term.

Read Full Article: https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/small-businesses-sue-block-trumps-latest-tariffs?utm_source=justthenews.com&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=external-news-aggregators