The New Civil Liberties Alliance — a nonprofit group that describes itself as battling “violations by the administrative state” — sued the federal government on Thursday over the means by which it imposed steep new levies on Chinese imports earlier this year.
The new filing, which the group said was the first such lawsuit to challenge the Trump administration over its tariffs, set the stage for what may become a closely watched legal battle. It comes on the heels of President Trump’s separate announcement on Wednesday of broader, more extensive tariffs targeting many U.S. trading partners around the world.
At issue are the tariffs that Mr. Trump announced on China in February and expanded in March. To impose them, Mr. Trump cited a 1970s law that generally grants the president sweeping powers during an economic emergency, known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.
Mr. Trump charged that an influx of illegal drugs from China constituted a threat to the United States. But the alliance argued in the lawsuit, on behalf of Simplified, a Pensacola, Fla.-based company, that the administration had misapplied the law. Instead, the group said the law “does not allow a president to impose tariffs,” but rather is supposed to be reserved for putting in place trade embargoes and sanctions against “dangerous foreign actors.”
Mr. Trump cited that same law as one of the legal justifications for the expansive global tariffs he announced with an executive order on Wednesday. That order raised the tariff rate on China to at least 54 percent, adding new levies on top of those that the president imposed earlier this year.
Mr. Trump’s new order specifically described the U.S. trade deficit with other nations as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States.”
For now, the alliance asked the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Florida to block implementation and enforcement of the president’s earlier tariffs on China.
“You can look through the statute all day long; you’re not going to see the president may put tariffs on the American people once he declares an emergency,” said John J. Vecchione, senior litigation counsel for the alliance.
A spokesman for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.