US small businesses sue Trump administration over new ‘forced labour’ tariffs
The lawsuit argues that the US president is trying to reimpose duties that were already ruled illegal by the Supreme Court
Two small businesses in the United States have challenged President Donald Trump’s latest round of tariffs on goods from 60 trading partners, saying that the new policy, like most of Trump’s previous tariffs, went beyond the president’s authority to tax imports.
The lawsuit, filed in the US trade court in New York on Friday, argues that the new tariffs require more detailed country-specific findings about “forced labour” to be legally justified.
The two small businesses, backed by a non-profit legal group that successfully sued over previous rounds of tariffs, argued that the president was trying to reimpose tariffs that were already ruled illegal by the US Supreme Court.
The new tariffs took effect just as a temporary 10 per cent global tariff expired.
Trump has made tariffs a central pillar of his foreign policy, using them as leverage to negotiate trade deals around the globe.