President Trump’s latest round of tariffs is facing legal challenges, with two separate lawsuits filed by small businesses taking aim at sweeping new import levies targeting 60 trading partners.
The tariffs, announced Thursday, impose double-digit charges on goods from those countries and cover 99% of all U.S. imports. The Trump administration says the levies are justified under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, citing those countries’ failure to stop imports produced through forced labor. Critics, however, argue the real motivation is to replace a previous set of worldwide tariffs that the Supreme Court struck down in February — with the new tariffs arriving just as temporary 10% global tariffs, which had also faced court challenges, were expiring.
Educational toy company Learning Resources — which was part of the earlier tariff lawsuit that succeeded at the Supreme Court — joined several other small businesses in filing a new suit Friday in the Court of International Trade.
A second lawsuit came from Burlap and Barrel, a New York-based spice company, and Collective Horology, a watch retailer based in Ventura, California. That case is being handled by Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian advocacy organization.
Both suits contend that the government failed to adequately build its case against each specific economy or explain how the tariffs would actually eliminate the forced-labor practices they are supposedly targeting, as Section 301 requires.
“Forced labor is morally indefensible, but an important objective does not give the government permission to ignore the law,” said Sara Albrecht, chairman and CEO of the Liberty Justice Center. “The administration allowed one global tariff to expire and immediately replaced it with another under a different statute. Changing the statute doesn’t change the law.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Legal experts say overturning this round of tariffs may prove more difficult than previous challenges. Trump used the same Section 301 authority to impose heavy tariffs on China during his first term, and those withstood court scrutiny.
Attorney Patrick Childress, a partner at Holland & Knight and a former U.S. trade official, noted that unlike the tariffs that expired Friday, “these tariffs will be with us for the long haul.” He added that even if countries adopt the exact policies Washington is demanding, they will still need to demonstrate enforcement to the U.S. government’s satisfaction before any tariffs are lifted — suggesting that quick relief is unlikely for any country affected by the new measures.
