Whiplash: As second court orders halt to tariffs, appeals court keeps them in place

Following a late Wednesday night decision by the U.S. Court of International Trade to halt President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on trade partners, a second federal court issued a similar decision in which it ruled that the invocation of a 1977 law does not give the president unilateral authority to impose such levies.

But a federal appeals court has quickly responded by placing a hold on the first court’s decision, effectively keeping the tariffs in place for the time being.

According to reporting at Politico, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on Thursday that the “International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the president to impose the tariffs set forth” in a series of executive orders.

Soon afterward, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit put a pause on the ruling from a day earlier, temporarily preserving many of the “Liberation Day” tariffs on an administrative basis as the judicial process continues to play out, according to The New York Times.

The White House spent much of Wednesday night and Thursday morning blasting the initial decision by the Court of International Trade. Administration officials expressed confidence that even if the tariffs were reversed on the basis of the authority granted to the president by the IEEPA, there were other levers of administrative power the president could pull to achieve the same result.

The decision “bought time for the panel’s judges to consider the government’s ask for a longer delay, as the administration pursues a ruling that would safeguard one of its most potent tools in the president’s global trade war,” the Times reported.

In a filing on Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) called the initial decision to pause the tariffs “rife with legal error,” warning that it would limit the president’s ability “to eliminate our exploding trade deficit and reorient the global economy on an equal footing,” the Times reported.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a press briefing on Thursday that the issue should be resolved by the Supreme Court to “put an end to this for the sake of our Constitution and our country.” She also accused the judges behind the initial decision of “brazenly abus[ing]” their power.

It’s unclear at this stage if an additional order to pause the second lower-court decision is required. Typically, different appeals courts operate under different jurisdictions, so a separate decision to pause the tariffs within the D.C. circuit may be required, according to a legal professional who spoke to HousingWire.

But the situation is novel and fast-moving, the source explained, complicating the picture of potential overlap.