US Trade Court Weighs Legality of Trump's 10% Global Tariff

Source: US News & World Report/Reuters

April 10, 2026, at 6:07 a.m.


NEW YORK, April 10 (Reuters) - A U.S. trade court ⁠on ⁠Friday considered the legality of a 10% ⁠global import tax imposed by President Donald Trump, which several states and small ​businesses say sidesteps a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated most of his previous tariffs. A group of 24 mostly Democratic-led states ‌and two small businesses sued the Trump ‌administration to stop the new tariffs, which went into effect on February 24.

The hearing is before a three-judge panel ⁠of the U.S. ⁠Court of International Trade. Oregon's lawyer Brian Marshall told the judges they should block the ​10% tariffs rather than let them expire on the normal 150-day timeline, to keep Trump from invoking a variety of laws to keep them indefinitely. " (If) we have a successive series where there's always tariffs in place, that's a problem," Marshall said.

Marshall also said ​the tariffs were based on archaic authority that was meant to protect the U.S. dollar from sudden depreciation ⁠in ⁠the 1970s, when dollars could be ⁠exchanged for gold ​reserves held in Fort Knox. He said that authority was meant to resolve significant "balance-of-payments deficits," and Trump cannot repurpose ​it to address routine trade deficits.

Trump ⁠has made tariffs a central pillar of his foreign policy in his second term, claiming sweeping authority to issue tariffs without input from Congress.

Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2026-04-10/us-trade-court-weighs-legality-of-trump-10-global-tariff