US appeals court gives temporary reprieve to Donald Trump’s tariffs

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A US federal appeals court gave Donald Trump’s global tariff plans a temporary reprieve on Thursday, pausing a ruling that had found his “liberation day” levies to be illegal.

In a ruling on Thursday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted the temporary stay “until further notice”.

The stay was issued hours after the White House vowed to go to the Supreme Court to try to overturn a judicial decision on Wednesday night that Trump could not use emergency economic powers to impose sweeping tariffs on trading partners.

“This is a big victory for the president,” Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said in an interview with Fox News. “President Trump’s case is iron clad . . . the bottom line is that President Trump’s trade team has their eyes on the horizon.”

The latest decision marks a legal win for the Trump administration but leaves the longer-term fate of its global tariff regime in the balance. The US can continue to collect tariffs while the stay is in place.

On Wednesday, the US Court of International Trade’s surprise ruling delivered a blow to the president’s tariff plans and drew a backlash from the White House, which accused judges of “judicial over-reach”.

“Three judges of the US Court of International Trade . . . brazenly abused their judicial power to usurp the authority of President Trump, to stop him from carrying out the mandate that the American people gave him,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday.

“Ultimately the Supreme Court must put an end to this, for the sake of our constitution and our country.”

Trump, in a social media post on Thursday, said the Court of International Trade’s ruling was “so wrong, and so political!” and that he hoped the Supreme Court would reverse “this horrible, Country threatening decisions, QUICKLY and DECISIVELY”.

Trump described the court’s decision as the “harshest financial ruling ever leveled on us as a Sovereign Nation” and said that “Trillions of Dollars would be lost by our Country”. He said that he must be “allowed to protect America against those that are doing it Economic and Financial harm”.

A separate ruling by a district court judge in Washington also found the tariff scheme to be “unlawful” but gave the administration 14 days to appeal.

Trump’s top trade and economic advisers have insisted there are other ways for the president to pursue his global trade war — and that negotiations for deals with other nations would carry on.

Peter Navarro, the chief architect of Trump’s trade wars, told Bloomberg on Thursday morning that the trade court ruling showed the administration could also use different legal bases to impose a baseline 10 per cent tariff and higher “reciprocal” duties on many countries.

“So nothing has really changed here in that sense . . . We are still, as we speak, having countries call us and tell us they want a deal. These deals are going to happen.”

Wall Street analysts suggested the court ruling would slow down, but not derail, the White House’s plans. US stocks rose after the decision but the rally moderated, with the S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite both closing up 0.4 per cent.

Asian stocks fell on Friday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 1.4 per cent while Japan’s exporter-heavy Nikkei 225 retreated 1.4 per cent. The US dollar edged up 0.1 per cent against a basket of six currencies.

Goldman Sachs president John Waldron told a conference in New York on Thursday that he still expected the US government to increase tariffs on most countries. “I think we’re going to go towards a 10 per cent universal baseline tariff with individualised, targeted tariffs on top with individual countries,” he said.

Hassett also insisted that the Trump administration would be able to press ahead with its plans.

“Trump does always win these negotiations because we are right. We are right that America has been mishandled by other governments, that our tariffs are taking them to the table, and they are coming in with massive concessions, opening up their markets to our products and lowering their tariffs on us,” he said.

He added there were “different approaches” that the administration could take to impose tariffs if required, but added: “We’re not planning to pursue those right now because we’re very, very confident that this really is incorrect.”

Additional reporting by Joe Miller in Washington and Martin Arnold in New York