Trump tariffs stay in place for now after appellate ruling

Trump tariffs stay in place for now after appellate ruling

US President Donald Trump celebrated a temporary reprieve for his aggressive tariff strategy on Thursday, with an appeals court preserving his sweeping import duties on China and other trading partners -- for now.

The short-term relief will allow the appeals process to proceed after the US Court of International Trade barred most of the tariffs announced since Trump took office, ruling on Wednesday that he had overstepped his authority.

Welcoming the latest twist in his legal skirmishes over his trade policies, Trump lashed out at the Manhattan-based trade court, calling it "horrible" and saying its blockade should be "quickly and decisively" reversed for good.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said trade talks were "a bit stalled" and suggested Trump get involved personally with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in order to iron out tariffs between the world's two biggest economies.

"I think that given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity, that this is going to require both leaders to weigh in with each other," Bessent told Fox News after the ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, known as an administrative stay.

Washington and Beijing agreed this month to pause reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, a surprise de-escalation in their bitter trade war following talks between top officials in Geneva.

Trump has moved to reconfigure US trade ties with the world since returning to the presidency in January, using levies to force foreign governments to the negotiating table.

However, the stop-start tariff rollout on both allies and adversaries has roiled markets and snarled supply chains.

The White House had been given 10 days to halt affected tariffs before Thursday's decision from the appeals court.

The Trump administration called the block "blatantly wrong," expressing confidence that the decision would be overturned on appeal.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the judges "brazenly abused their judicial power to usurp the authority of President Trump."

Leavitt said the Supreme Court "must put an end" to the tariff challenge, while stressing that Trump had other legal means to impose levies.

A separate ruling by a federal district judge in the US capital found some Trump levies unlawful as well, giving the administration 14 days to appeal.

- 'Hiccups' -

Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told Fox Business that "hiccups" sparked by the decisions of "activist judges" would not affect talks with trading partners, adding that three deals were close to finalization.

Trump's trade advisor Peter Navarro told reporters after the appellate stay that the administration had earlier received "plenty of phone calls from countries" who said they would continue to "negotiate in good faith," without identifying those nations.

Trump's import levies are aimed partly at punishing economies that sell more to the United States than they buy.

The president has argued that trade deficits and the threat posed by drug smuggling constituted a "national emergency" that justified the widespread tariffs -- a notion the Court of International Trade ruled against.

Trump unveiled sweeping duties on nearly all trading partners in April at a baseline 10 percent, plus steeper levies on dozens of economies including China and the European Union that have since been paused.

The US trade court's ruling quashed those blanket duties, along with others that Trump imposed on Canada, Mexico and China separately using emergency powers.

However, it left intact 25 percent duties on imported autos, steel and aluminum.

Beijing -- which was hit by additional 145 percent tariffs before they were temporarily reduced to make space for negotiations -- reacted to the trade court decision by saying Washington should scrap the levies.

"China urges the United States to heed the rational voices from the international community and domestic stakeholders and fully cancel the wrongful unilateral tariff measures," said commerce ministry spokeswoman He Yongqian.

The trade court was ruling in two separate cases, brought by businesses and a coalition of state governments, arguing that the president had violated Congress's power of the purse.

The judges said the cases rested on whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) delegates such powers to the president "in the form of authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world."

The judges stated that any interpretation of the IEEPA that "delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional."

Analysts at London-based research group Capital Economics said the case may end up with the Supreme Court but would likely not mark the end of the tariff war.

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Originally published as Trump tariffs stay in place for now after appellate ruling