A New Jersey food importer filed suit Tuesday challenging President Donald Trump’s use of a Depression-era law to put a 50% tariff on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, the Associated Press reported.
The Gellert Global Group, a third-generation family business that imports Canadian cheese, filed the case in the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York.
In August, Trump invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to impose the tariffs, prompting dollar-for-dollar retaliation from Canada. Last month he went further, announcing a ban on nearly $1 billion in Canadian products, including alcoholic beverages, dairy products and motorcycles. Section 338 has never been used in a trade dispute or tested in court.
“No president should have the power to pull a dormant statute off the shelf,” said Sara Albrecht, chair of the Liberty Justice Center, the libertarian group representing the company, which earlier won a Supreme Court challenge to other Trump tariffs.
Sources: AP via ABC News. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Ajay Suresh from New York, NY, USA / CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
