Trump Sued Over Tariffs by Conservative-Backed Legal Group (1)

A powerful legal group backed by conservative funding sued President Donald Trump, setting up an early legal clash over the significant US tariffs his administration announced this week.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance said Thursday the president illegally imposed an emergency tariff on Chinese goods. NCLA is representing a small retail stationery business named Simplified, which claims it will suffer “severe” harm from his “unconstitutional” tariffs on China.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Florida may be the first legal challenge to the sweeping new US tariffs. The levies, which were announced by Trump on Wednesday, have roiled global markets and caused US stocks to plunge.

Read more: Trump Open to Tariff Cuts in Return for ‘Phenomenal’ Offers

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who is named as a defendant along with her agency, defended the tariffs in a statement Friday.

“For too long, America has been targeted by unfair trade practices that made our supply chain dependent on foreign adversaries, eroded our industrial base, and hurt American workers,” she said.

NCLA’s involvement carries legal and politically significance. The group has been successful with its work on several high-profile cases. Bloomberg Law has reported that it’s backed by groups tied to significant conservative players.

Read More: Big Donors Back New Group to Fight ‘Deep State’ at Supreme Court

The group bills itself as a “nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group” that works to thwart violations by the “administrative state.”

“By invoking emergency power to impose an across-the-board tariff on imports from China that the statute does not authorize, President Trump has misused that power, usurped Congress’s right to control tariffs, and upset the Constitution’s separation of powers,” Andrew Morris, senior litigation counsel at NCLA, said in a statement announcing the suit.

The complaint seeks a court order declaring the tariffs unconstitutional and finding that they were adopted in violation of US administrative rules.

Simplified touts itself as a woman-owned business that sells premium calendar planners and other organizational tools.

Read More: Frenzied Rollout Marks Trump Tariff Push That Put World on Edge

The case is Emily Ley Paper Inc. v. Trump, 25-cv-00464, US District Court, Northern District of Florida (Pensacola).

(Updates with Kristi Noem’s comment starting in fourth paragraph.)

To contact the reporter on this story:
Peter Blumberg in San Francisco at pblumberg1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Ben Bain at bbain2@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth, Jon Herskovitz

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