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The lawsuit said the policy put in place by President Donald
Trump has been subject to his “whims rather than the sound
exercise of lawful authority.”
It challenged Trump’s claim that he could arbitrarily impose
tariffs based on the International Emergency Economic Powers
Act. The suit asks the court to declare the tariffs to be
illegal, and to block government agencies and its officers from
enforcing them.
A message sent to the Justice Department for comment was not
immediately returned.
The states listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit were Oregon,
Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine,
Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Vermont.
In a release, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes called Trump's
tariff scheme “insane.”
She said it was “not only economically reckless — it is
illegal.”
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said “Trump's lawless
and chaotic tariffs are a massive tax on Connecticut families
and a disaster for Connecticut businesses and jobs.”
The lawsuit maintained that only Congress has the power to
impose tariffs and that the president can only invoke the
International Emergency Economic Powers Act when an emergency
presents an “unusual and extraordinary threat” from abroad.
“By claiming the authority to impose immense and ever-changing
tariffs on whatever goods entering the United States he chooses,
for whatever reason he finds convenient to declare an emergency,
the President has upended the constitutional order and brought
chaos to the American economy,” the lawsuit said.
Last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, sued the
Trump administration in U.S. District Court in the Northern
District of California over the tariff policy, saying his state
could lose billions of dollars in revenue as the largest
importer in the country.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai responded to Newsom's
lawsuit, saying the Trump administration "remains committed to
addressing this national emergency that’s decimating America’s
industries and leaving our workers behind with every tool at our
disposal, from tariffs to negotiations.”
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Associated Press Writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut,
contributed to this report.
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