President Donald Trump could face his first legal dispute over newly imposed tariffs on Chinese imports.
A lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in Pensacola, Florida, targets Trump’s recent executive actions that introduced a steep 54% combined tariff on goods from China.
According to Reuters, the suit was forwarded by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), a conservative legal organization, on behalf of Simplified, a Florida-based small business that sells organizational planners and sources its products from China.
The group argues that Trump unlawfully invoked emergency powers to levy tariffs that have already disrupted markets and raised costs for importers.
According to data from the US Census Bureau, China and the European Union (EU) together made up roughly a quarter of all American imports in 2024, ranking among the top three sources of foreign goods, alongside Mexico.
Trump used executive orders unlawfully, NCLA argues
In the court filing, NCLA mentioned the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), which the Trump administration cited as justification for the tariff orders. The IEEPA is designed to give the president authority to impose economic sanctions during international emergencies. The plaintiffs claim that using the statute to impose tariffs oversteps legal boundaries.
“Congress passed the IEEPA to counter external emergencies, not to grant presidents a blank check to write domestic economic policy,” the lawsuit states.
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According to the complaint, the law allows asset freezes and financial sanctions but contains no explicit language authorizing “ultra vires and unconstitutional” tariffs.
The NCLA also claimed that no president in the nearly 50-year history of the IEEPA has interpreted it as a license to impose taxes on Americans through tariffs.
The complaint traced the origin of Trump’s tariff actions to two executive orders issued prior to the April 2 trade policy announcement. On February 1, the POTUS signed an order placing a 10% tariff on Chinese imports.
Trump then doubled to 20% in a second order on March 3, and on Wednesday, the president applied a general 10% tariff on all imports into America, with a substantially higher 34% tariff directed specifically at Chinese goods.
The plaintiffs have asked the court to issue an injunction blocking the implementation of the China tariffs and to rule the executive orders unlawful. They contend that companies, including Florida-based Simplified, which depend on Chinese manufacturers, will face immediate and irreparable harm due to the steep import duties.
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China fights back with reciprocal trade levies
Within 24 hours of “Liberation Day,” China’s State Council Tariff Commission declared it would impose its own 34% tariff on all US imports starting April 10. Coining the US move a “typical unilateral bullying practice,” Beijing said the action violates international trade norms and disregards China’s economic rights.
Today, a public holiday in China, the government announced it had added 11 American firms to its “unreliable entity list,” effectively blacklisting them. Among the affected companies are several US drone manufacturers. China also imposed new export controls on 16 American firms, barring them from purchasing Chinese goods classified as dual-use technologies.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce further announced the launch of anti-dumping investigations into American and Indian-made medical CT X-ray tubes. These probes could lead to additional duties and restrictions on much-needed medical equipment exports.
Beijing also imposed export controls on seven rare earth minerals critical to electronics and military hardware. These include samarium, gadolinium, and terbium, materials that the United States relies on for manufacturing.
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