The New York Attorney General, Letitia James, speaks during a press conference on February 14, 2025 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty images
A dozen states sued President Donald Trump and his administration on Wednesday, looking for a court order to declare that his new tariffs on foreign imports are illegal.
“The president does not have the power to increase taxes on a whim, but that is exactly what President Trump has been doing with these rates,” said New York Attorney, Letitia James, in a statement on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed at the United States International Trade Court.
He argues that a president has no authority to arbitrarily impose tariffs under the international law of emergency economic powers, the United States law that Trump has cited in the execution of his rate policy.
The civil complaint occurs more than a week after a group of five small companies filed a similar lawsuit against Trump in the same court, challenging the legality of the new tariffs for the same reasons.
On Tuesday, a panel of three judges in court denied a motion of the plaintiffs in that case that sought a temporary restriction order that would suspend the new Trump tariffs waiting for the result of the case.
In addition to New York, the plaintiffs of the new lawsuit filed on Wednesday include Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon and Vermont.
“Not once any other president has used IEEPA to impose tariffs. In the almost five decades since IEEPA was promulgated, no other president has imposed tariffs based on the existence of any national emergency, despite the global anti -narcotics campaigns headed by the United States and long -standing commercial deficits,” says the state suit.
“Because these rates are illegal, this Court should declare that they are not in force, it prevents it from the agencies and officers demanded to apply and vacate the actions of the agency that implement them.”
CNBC has requested comments from the White House about demand.
Since he assumed the position, Trump has issued a series of executive orders that impose a range of tariffs on foreign imports, including a 145% rate on products made in China and 25% tariffs on products in Canada and Mexico. Trump imposed a 10% tariff on imports from most other countries in the world.
“The Constitution assigns to Congress, not to the President, to the ‘power to place and raise taxes, duties, impositions and taxes,” says the lawsuit.
“When claiming the authority to impose immense and always changing tariffs on any of the assets that enter the United States, for any reason that he considers convenient to declare an emergency, the president has overturned the constitutional order and brought the chaos to the US economy,” says the demand.
Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mayes said: “The scheme of crazy tariffs of President Trump is not only economically reckless, it is illegal.”
“Arizona cannot afford to increase President Trump,” Mayes said. “It doesn’t matter what the White House affirms, tariffs are a tax that will be transmitted to Arizona consumers.”
