The Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit against the White House regarding levies imposed on Canadian goods. The administration placed a 50% levy on approximately $20bn of Canadian products.
Trade negotiations between the United States and Canada collapsed in August. Donald Trump introduced these tariffs to address what he termed "unequal treatment" of American alcohol, dairy, and cars.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded by matching the US Section 338 tariffs "dollar for dollar". Gellert Global Group is currently paying 50% tariffs on cheese exported from Canada while facing retaliatory Canadian tariffs on American-made cheese.
Thomas Gellert said, "These tariffs disrupt those relationships overnight and create costs and uncertainty that ripple through the entire supply chain." The Liberty Justice Center is challenging the use of Section 338 of the 1930 Tariff Act, which mandates a 30-day waiting period before levies can be imposed.
Officials noted the tariff on products including cheese was added to the list only one week before collection commenced. Sara Albrecht stated, "No president should have the power to pull a dormant statute off the shelf and use it to impose sweeping tariffs or import bans without the limits Congress required."
Albrecht added that the Constitution grants tariff power to Congress and the executive branch cannot move a policy from one statute to another to ignore those limits. The Liberty Justice Center filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to block the collection of these duties.
The organization successfully sued against sweeping tariffs brought in under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in February.
