California launches legal challenge against Trump’s ‘illegal’ tariffs

California is asking a court to block Donald Trump’s “illegal” tariffs, accusing the president of overstepping his authority and threatening trade in a state with the world’s fifth-largest economy.

The lawsuit, brought by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, and attorney general, Rob Bonta, challenges Trump’s invocation of emergency powers to unilaterally impose tariffs on imports, which have rattled stock markets and raised fears of recession.

“President Trump’s unlawful tariffs are wreaking chaos on California families, businesses and our economy, driving up prices and threatening jobs,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re standing up for American families who can’t afford to let the chaos continue.”

Relying on a statute known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), Trump has issued a series of declarations imposing, reversing, delaying, restarting and modifying tariffs on the US’s trading partners.

The complaint argues that the law does not give the US president the authority to impose tariffs without the consent of Congress. It asks the court to declare Trump’s tariff orders “unlawful and void” and to order the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection to stop enforcing them.

“The president’s chaotic and haphazard implementation of tariffs is not only deeply troubling, it’s illegal,” Bonta said in a statement. “Californians are bracing for fallout from the impact of the president’s choices. From farmers in the Central Valley to small businesses in Sacramento and worried families at the kitchen table, this game the president is playing has very real consequences for Californians across our state.”

Trump has said tariffs are necessary to ensure “fair trade”, protect American workers and turn the US into an “industrial powerhouse”.

Earlier this month, on what he called “liberation day”, the president imposed a sweeping 10% tariff on nearly all imported goods and higher tariffs for a host of countries, most of which he later paused for 90 days.

A 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, the US’s largest trading partners, remains in effect, while Trump’s actions have provoked a trade war with China, its third-largest trading partner, subject to US tariffs of 145%.

California, the US’s largest importer and second-largest exporter, relies heavily on trade with Mexico, Canada and China. The complaint says the economic consequences of Trump’s tariffs on the state will be “significant”.

Newsom and Bonta will hold a joint press conference later on Wednesday in the Central Valley, where farmers are bracing for the consequences of Trump’s escalating trade war. California is the nation’s top agricultural exporter, shipping nuts, tomatoes, wine and rice around the world. California agricultural exports totalled nearly $24bn in 2022.

After the announcement of across-the-board levies, Newsom said his administration would pursue new trade deals with international partners to exempt California from retaliatory tariffs.

Earlier this week, a legal advocacy group filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of US businesses that import goods from countries targeted by the levies, asking the US court of international trade to block Trump’s tariffs.