When Congress passed the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) in 1977, it envisioned a president acting swiftly to block terrorist financing or freeze the assets of foreign adversaries. What it didn’t envision—what it explicitly rejected—was a president using that same emergency law to impose tariffs and ignite a trade war. Yet that’s exactly what President Donald Trump did.
Now, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) is asking the courts to say: enough.
In a landmark lawsuit, NCLA is challenging Trump’s use of IEEPA to levy sweeping tariffs on Chinese goods, arguing that this maneuver was not only legally indefensible—it was unconstitutional. The case goes beyond economics. At its core, it’s about whether we allow the modern presidency to mutate into a power center that rules by emergency decree.
Trump’s 2020 executive order, framed as a response to alleged Chinese threats to the U.S. economy, invoked IEEPA to justify tariffs affecting billions of dollars in imports. But here’s the problem: IEEPA does not authorize import restrictions. In fact, Congress deliberately excluded tariffs and duties from the law’s scope, preserving its constitutional prerogative to regulate trade.
The president can use IEEPA to block transactions, freeze assets, and cut off financial relationships with foreign entities—especially during times of war or international instability. But imposing taxes on imports? That’s a line even IEEPA doesn’t cross. Congress knew that economic coercion through tariffs was a legislative power, not one to be wielded unilaterally by the executive.
Trump crossed that line.
In doing so, he didn’t just test the limits of trade law. He tested the very structure of our government. If a president can declare a “national emergency” and suddenly acquire powers that Congress never granted—powers Congress explicitly withheld—then we’ve entered dangerous territory. A trade dispute with China today could become a domestic policy battle tomorrow, fought not in Congress but through the stroke of a presidential pen.
That’s why the NCLA’s lawsuit matters. It’s a test case for the balance of powers in the 21st century. It asks the courts to reassert the principle that emergency powers are not blank checks, and that statutory limits—however inconvenient to executive ambition—still matter.
This case isn’t about whether Trump was right or wrong to confront China. Reasonable people can disagree about trade policy. But the process—the legal foundation for that policy—must be sound. Otherwise, we risk normalizing a form of governance where presidents cite “emergencies” to bypass Congress and refashion the economy according to their will.
That’s not just bad law. It’s bad democracy.
