Most Trump tariffs illegal, overstep presidential powers, rules US appeals court

A federal appeals court in the United States on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump had overstepped his authority to impose the so-called reciprocal tariffs under an emergency powers statute, NBC reported.

The tariffs were illegal as only the legislative branch of the government, the Congress, has the power to enforce such sweeping measures, the court said.

However, the judges allowed the tariffs to remain in place till October 14 to give the Trump administration time to file an appeal in the Supreme Court, Reuters reported.

Responding to the ruling, Trump said on Friday that the “highly partisan” appeals court had “incorrectly said that our tariffs should be removed”. He vowed to fight the ruling in the Supreme Court.

The ruling affects two sets of tariffs the US president has imposed.

The first are the reciprocal tariffs imposed separately for dozens of countries, including India. These range from the baseline 10% for some countries to the 34% rate imposed on China.

Trump’s tariffs had taken effect on April 9. Hours later, however, he reduced the rates on imports from most countries to 10% for 90 days to provide time for trade negotiations. Washington has been negotiating separate trade deals with several trading partners to extract economic concessions.

The US president had repeatedly said he intended to impose a reciprocal tax on several nations citing high tariffs the...

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