The ruling is a reversal of a lower court order a day earlier.
A federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily paused a lower-court ruling that struck down President Donald Trump’s tariffs on a wide range of countries.
In its decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted the federal government’s request for an immediate administrative stay of the U.S. Court of International Trade’s order on Wednesday “while this court considers the motions papers.”
Both the plaintiffs and defendants in the case were directed by the appeals court “to immediately inform this court of any action taken by the Court of International Trade on the United States’s pending stay motions,” it said.
The Trump administration earlier in the day told the federal appeals court in a filing that it would seek emergency relief with the US. Supreme Court as soon as Friday if it did not act quickly to pause the lower court decision.
On Wednesday, a panel of three judges with the International Trade Court ruled that Trump had exceeded his authority by issuing sweeping tariffs under an emergency-powers law, siding with plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the administration.
“The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs,” Wednesday’s court decision stated, making reference to the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The U.S. Court of International Trade is a federal court that deals specifically with civil lawsuits involving international trade law.
While tariffs must generally be approved by Congress, Trump has said that he has the power to act to address the trade deficits he calls a national emergency.
The lawsuit was filed by a group of small businesses, including a wine importer, V.O.S. Selections, whose owner has said the tariffs are having a major impact and his company may not survive. A dozen states also followed suit, led by Oregon.
In response to the lower court order, lawyers for the government said in papers Thursday the decision is an “unprecedented and legally indefensible injunction permanently barring the United States from implementing tariffs involving dozens of countries, from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China to the European Union.”
Those tariffs, the government contended, “are central to the President’s foreign-policy and economic agendas” and added the order would block “efforts to eliminate our exploding trade deficit and reorient the global economy on an equal footing.”
“America cannot function if President Trump—or any other president, for that matter—has their sensitive diplomatic or trade negotiations railroaded by activist judges,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday. “Ultimately, the Supreme Court must put an end to this for the sake of our Constitution and our country.”
Leavitt added that it’s up to the Supreme Court to “put an end to this for the sake of our Constitution and our country.”
