Topline
The Trump administration on Wednesday night asked the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court decision that deemed his sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs as illegal, setting the stage for a legal resolution on one of the president’s centerpiece economic policies.
According to the Washington Post and The Hill, the appeal petition, challenging last week’s federal appellate court ruling, was filed on Wednesday night, although it has not yet been docketed.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled 7-4 last week that the president had overstepped his authority by issuing the sweeping tariffs of nearly all U.S. trading partners and said the power to impose such levies is “vested exclusively in the legislative branch” and a “core Congressional power.”
In the filing, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the Supreme Court justices to decide by next Wednesday whether they will take up the case and schedule oral arguments by the first week of November.
The filing argues that America’s trade deficit with other nations amounts to an “economic emergency,” and Trump had determined that his tariffs and subsequent trade negotiations “are pulling America back from the precipice of disaster.”
Trump has argued that he can use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)—which allows the president to regulate international trade after declaring an emergency—to impose his sweeping levies.
Earlier on Wednesday, President Donald Trump told reporters at a press conference that he will ask the Supreme Court to hear the tariff case on an expedited basis.
“The President and his Cabinet officials have determined that the tariffs are promoting peace and unprecedented economic prosperity, and that the denial of tariff authority would expose our nation to trade retaliation without effective defenses and thrust America back to the brink of economic catastrophe,” Sauer argued in the filing.
In a statement issued on X, the Liberty Justice Center’s Senior Counsel Jeffrey Schwab, who is representing the litigants suing the governments on tariffs, said: “The government has now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review this case. Both federal courts that considered the issue agreed that IEEPA does not give the President unchecked tariff authority. We are confident that our legal arguments against the so-called "Liberation Day" tariffs will ultimately prevail. These unlawful tariffs are inflicting serious harm on small businesses and jeopardizing their survival.