1) (Updated) Five things you need to know as Trump’s tariffs go back to court

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Kelly Geraldine Malone, May 29, 2025

The world buckled up for another roller-coaster ride of uncertainty this week as U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff agenda made its way through the courts.

A federal appeals court on Thursday granted the Trump administration’s emergency motion to stay a decision from the U.S. Court of International Trade that blocked many of the president’s tariffs.

The lower court on Wednesday ruled that Trump’s use of an emergency powers law to impose tariffs exceeded his authority.

Here’s a quick look at what it all means for Canada.

What’s happening with tariffs

The federal appeals court granted the Trump administration’s emergency motion, essentially freezing a decision by the U.S. Court of International Trade blocking the so-called “Liberation Day” and fentanyl-related tariffs.

That means that countries will continue to be hit by those duties as the case against tariffs continues through the appeals court. They include 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian imports not compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, with a lower 10 per cent levy on energy and potash.

The appeals court said the request for a stay was granted “until further notice while this court considers the motions papers.” It said the plaintiffs have until June 5 to reply to the administration’s motion for a stay, while the administration “may file a single, consolidated reply in support” of the motion no later than June 9.

What the White House argued

In its emergency motion to the appeals court, the Trump administration argued the U.S. Court of International Trade’s injunction blocking the tariffs was “unprecedented and legally indefensible.”

The motion said blocking the tariffs threatens “to unwind months of foreign policy decision-making.” It said agreements with multiple countries could “be immediately unravelled.”

Trump’s administration argued that if a stay was not granted, it would seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court on Friday.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier Thursday that the Supreme Court should “put an end to this” and called the lower court’s decision “judicial overreach.” She maintained that Trump had the legal authority to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to implement tariffs.

The U.S. Court of International Trade’s decision on IEEPA

Trump used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, usually referred to by the acronym IEEPA, to implement his most sweeping tariffs. While the national security statute gives the U.S. president authority to control economic transactions after declaring an emergency, it had never previously been used for tariffs.

The U.S. Constitution gives power over taxes and tariffs to Congress. The trade court wrote that “because of the Constitution’s express allocation of the tariff power to Congress … we do not read IEEPA to delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President.”

“We instead read IEEPA’s provisions to impose meaningful limits on any such authority it confers,” it added.

Mona Paulsen, an associate international economic law professor at the London School of Economics, said the decision is significant because it shows there are limits to the main tool Trump’s administration had used in its attempts to realign global trade.

What the lower court said about tariffs

Trump declared emergencies at the United States’ northern and southern borders linked to the flow of fentanyl to hit Canada and Mexico with economywide tariffs. He later declared an emergency over trade deficits to impose his retaliatory “Liberation Day” duties on most nations.

The trade court wrote that “the Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs.”

It separately found that “the Trafficking Tariffs fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders.”

Which tariffs aren’t affected by this court ruling

Trump is hitting Canada, and the world, with 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum.

The president has also implemented 25 per cent duties on automobiles, with a partial carveout for cars compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade. Those vehicles are being slapped with tariffs on their non-American components.

Trump used the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to enact those duties. The president has launched trade investigations to use the same tool to tariff other imports, such as pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, in the future.

Leavitt said Trump will also look at other tools to continue his wide-ranging tariff agenda.

2) (Updated) Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs back on after appeals court decision

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By David Baxter and Kelly Geraldine Malone, May 29, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs are still hitting most countries around the world after a federal appeals court temporarily paused a decision from the U.S. Court of International Trade.

The lower court’s Wednesday decision found Trump’s use of an emergency powers law to impose sweeping tariffs exceeded his authority.

That lower court ruling says the Trump administration was not able to demonstrate how broad-based tariffs affected the fentanyl trafficking it used as justification for the tariffs.

The ruling from the appeals court says that the Court of International Trade’s injunction is stayed while the appeals court considers arguments.

The plaintiffs have until June 5 to reply to the Trump administration’s appeal of the lower court’s decision.

Hours earlier, Prime Minister Mark Carney said in the House of Commons that the original ruling was “welcome” but Canada’s trade relationship with the U.S. is still threatened.

Carney added that Canada’s “trading relationship with the United States is still profoundly and adversely threatened” by “unjustified” tariffs on steel, aluminum and the auto sector.

“It therefore remains the top priority of Canada’s new government to establish a new economic and security relationship with the United States and to strengthen our collaboration with reliable trading partners and allies around the world,” he said.

After question period, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said he hadn’t seen the appeal court decision yet but the government’s goal of fighting for Canadian industry and workers hadn’t changed.

Before the pause on the tariff injunction, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said she expects the appeal will go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and accused the federal court of “judicial overreach.”

She said the administration will abide by the federal court’s ruling but noted that there are other legal avenues Trump can take to impose tariffs.

“The administration is willing to use those. As you know, the administration has already applied section 232 tariffs on specific industries,” Leavitt said at the White House press briefing Thursday before the appeals court decision.

Section 232 is the portion of U.S. trade law Trump used to implement tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles, which remain in place.

Candace Laing, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president, said “the end of this trade war with the U.S. will not come through the courts.”

“It will come when we have negotiated a durable new agreement on trade that is trusted and respected by all involved,” she said in a media statement responding to the lower court’s ruling.

Leavitt said the Trump administration still plans to negotiate new trade deals even as the courts decide the future of what Trump has called “Liberation Day” tariffs.

“(Other countries) also probably see how ridiculous this ruling is, and they understand the administration is going to win and we intend to win,” she said.

The original decision at the New York-based federal court was delivered by a panel of three judges. One was appointed by Trump during his first administration, another by former president Barack Obama and the third by former president Ronald Reagan.

The ruling said “any interpretation” of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act that “delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional.” The decision separately blocked the fentanyl tariffs because it said “they do not deal with the threats” Trump cited to justify the duties in his executive order.

Mona Paulsen, an associate international economic law professor at the London School of Economics, said this was a straightforward question for the court to answer.

“They don’t scrutinize the national emergency. They look at that reasonable relationship,” she said. “They basically just find there’s no direct link here between the imposition of tariffs and the unusual and extraordinary threat that the trafficking orders said it was trying to address.”

Trump has said he imposed the duties to encourage other countries to make trade deals with the U.S. He’s also claimed they’ll bring manufacturing back to America and fill federal coffers.

“We actually see almost contradictory objectives sometimes being put into play, where it doesn’t make sense that you would want a tariff to both increase revenue for the government and also be leverage,” Paulsen said.

“Because as leverage in negotiation, let’s say with Canada, you would expect that in negotiations that the tariffs would go away, but not if they’re source of government revenue. And you can’t have it both ways.”

The president relied heavily on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, better known as IEEPA, to implement many of his tariffs. While the national security statute gives the U.S. president authority to control economic transactions after declaring an emergency, it had never been used before to impose tariffs.

Trump declared an emergency at the northern border to hit Canada with economywide tariffs in March. He partially paused those levies a few days later for imports that comply with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade.

The next month, he declared America’s trade deficits also amounted to a national emergency in order to hit nearly every country with tariffs. The president walked back the most devastating duties a few hours later but left a 10 per cent universal tariff in place.

Trump has continued to use IEEPA to threaten unpredictable increases to tariffs. After recently vowing to increase duties on the European Union to 50 per cent starting in June, he pushed the date back to July.

— With files from Catherine Morrison in Ottawa. 

3) (Updated) Carney ‘welcomes’ U.S. court ruling striking down some U.S. tariffs

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By David Baxter and Kelly Geraldine Malone, May 29, 2025

Prime Minister Mark Carney said he “welcomes” the decision by the U.S. Court of International Trade to strike down President Donald Trump’s broad-based tariffs on most countries.

On Wednesday, the court ruled that Trump does not have the authority to impose tariffs on nearly every country using the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, usually referred to by the acronym IEEPA.

The decision blocked both the “Liberation Day” duties and the fentanyl-related tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.

Addressing the House of Commons Thursday morning, Carney said the decision “is consistent with Canada’s long-standing position that the U.S. IEEPA tariffs were unlawful as well as unjustified.”

Carney added that Canada’s “trading relationship with the United States is still profoundly and adversely threatened” by “unjustified” tariffs on steel, aluminum and the auto sector.

“It therefore remains the top priority of Canada’s new government to establish a new economic and security relationship with the United States and to strengthen our collaboration with reliable trading partners and allies around the world,” he said.

The tariffs on steel, aluminum and the auto sector remain in place because they were implemented under a different U.S. law.

Candace Laing, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president, said that this is not the end of the trade war and business is still looking for stability.

“Ultimately, the end of this trade war with the U.S. will not come through the courts. It will come when we have negotiated a durable new agreement on trade that is trusted and respected by all involved,” she said in a media statement.

The Trump administration filed a notice of appeal soon after the ruling came down. While the president has not yet commented on the ruling, members of Trump’s team have widely condemned it.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted on social media that Americans are “living under a judicial tyranny.” White House spokesman Kush Desai said “it is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency.”

The decision at the New York-based federal court was delivered by a panel of three judges. One was appointed by Trump during his first administration, another by former president Barack Obama and the third by former president Ronald Reagan.

The ruling said “any interpretation of IEEPA that delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional.” The decision separately blocked the fentanyl tariffs because it said “they do not deal with the threats” Trump cited to justify the duties in his executive order.

Mona Paulsen, an associate international economic law professor at the London School of Economics, said this was a straightforward question for the court to answer.

“They don’t scrutinize the national emergency. They look at that reasonable relationship,” she said. “They basically just find there’s no direct link here between the imposition of tariffs and the unusual and extraordinary threat that the trafficking orders said it was trying to address.”

The decision calls into question how Trump can continue to wield the threat of tariffs against the world. He has said he imposed the duties to encourage other countries to make trade deals with the U.S. He’s also claimed they’ll bring manufacturing back to America and fill federal coffers.

“We actually see almost contradictory objectives sometimes being put into play, where it doesn’t make sense that you would want a tariff to both increase revenue for the government and also be leverage,” Paulsen said.

“Because as leverage in negotiation, let’s say with Canada, you would expect that in negotiations that the tariffs would go away, but not if they’re source of government revenue. And you can’t have it both ways.”

The president relied heavily on IEEPA to implement many of his tariffs. While the national security statute gives the U.S. president authority to control economic transactions after declaring an emergency, it had never been used before to impose tariffs.

Trump declared an emergency at the northern border to hit Canada with economywide tariffs in March. He partially paused those levies a few days later for imports that comply with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade.

The next month, he declared America’s trade deficits also amounted to a national emergency in order to hit nearly every country with tariffs. The president walked back the most devastating duties a few hours later but left a 10 per cent universal tariff in place.

Trump has continued to use IEEPA to threaten unpredictable increases to tariffs. After recently vowing to increase duties on the European Union to 50 per cent starting in June, he pushed the date back to July.

Paulsen said that more tariff powers exist in U.S. law, such as section 338 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1930. This provision, which has never been used, allows the president to impose tariffs of up to 50 per cent on countries believed to be discriminating against U.S. commerce.

“We don’t know what could be considered discriminating against U.S. commerce, and so that could actually be really, really broad,” Paulsen said.

“We’ve seen lots of different, sometimes counterintuitive arguments, about what the United States, the current administration, thinks is discriminating against U.S. commerce or is unfair to U.S. commerce, so that law may actually get applied more now.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called the court’s decision “good news” but said Canada “can no longer put all our eggs in the U.S. basket. Too risky.”

“Canada must fire up free enterprise to build pipelines, power lines, ports, rail, roads, and tech — so we are strong, self-reliant and sovereign for a change,” Poilievre said in a post on social media Thursday.

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet told reporters Thursday that the court ruling gives Canada “a better position” from which to negotiate with the United States.

Blanchet said he hopes the court ruling helps to lower the temperature when the trading partners are next at the bargaining table.

“It might call for some more reasonable, quiet and serene negotiations,” he said.