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Published On: Fri, May 30th, 2025

Turley: The Courts Don’t See It, But Trump Has Cards To Play And Tariff Negotiations Will Go Forward

On FOX News ‘The Ingraham Angle,’ George Washington Law Professor, Jonathan Turley, explains the next steps with President Trump’s tariff policies in the courts:

LAURA INGRAHAM: George Washington University Law Professor and Fox News Contributor Jonathan Turley is here to break it all down. Now, Jonathan, I had said a while ago on the show that this opinion by the Court of International Trade was expected among trade experts, lawyers that operate in this field. I expected it, even from that three judge panel. What are the administration’s options now, obviously, the tariffs are temporarily back, but what are the options for them going forward? JONATHAN TURLEY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think you raised the right point here. We’ve got to keep in mind that IEEPA has never been used for tariffs. It’s never been used in this way, and these judges were saying, they just don’t see that, what they called unbounded authority under this act. But the Trump administration is correct that Congress has, through the years, deferred to presidents on tariffs, including passing laws that give them authority to impose tariffs, and he can now go ahead and use some of those laws. And, you know, some of them allow for 150 days to be — have tariffs put on and then during that period, you do an investigation and then they can be left on if you find the requisite market conditions. And these are very discretionary types of decisions made by presidents under these laws. So, he has options here. Also keep in mind, the President did not lose across the board. Tariffs on cars and steel in these other sectors were not affected by this ruling. So there are cards to play in this game. INGRAHAM: Well, but the point is, and you alluded to it in the first Trump administration, there were trade investigations done, I think Section 322, I might be misstating, but they did these long investigations — TURLEY: That’s right. INGRAHAM: — issued a long report, hundreds and hundreds of pages against China, and those tariffs were never struck down by a federal court because the report was so well done. They can still do that again here. It’ll take some time, but we know those types of tariffs targeted against certain countries for certain wrongdoing usually will — will withstand judicial scrutiny. Correct? TURLEY: Correct. And the fact is, the administration wanted to try this approach. This was a three point shot, and they hit the rim because the courts just don’t see it. But he has authority and that’s one of the reasons why these negotiations are likely to go forward. Other countries are very sophisticated. They know what authority he has. They know that he can now turn, as he did in his first term to pursue those and they’re not particularly onerous. He can really do that in relatively — and make relatively fast work of it. Now, Congress may also want to be equally nimble here. The important thing is that Trump has been using these tariffs like a gun to the head of these other countries, and the court just removed the bullets. The fact is that Congress can come in, even if they don’t like the tariffs, and say, look, we’re in this now. We don’t want to undermine the President. We want to see these deals completed and see if they can also signal support. Now, keep in mind, recently, Congress refused to undo the tariffs in a Senate Bill, so they’ve already had that vote. INGRAHAM: Well, and also, Joe Biden kept Trump’s tariffs in place. All these tariffs that were levied against China — TURLEY: Right. INGRAHAM: — which you referenced. I mean, Biden kept those in place because they worked. They were — they were effective. And yes, you know, we still have a massive trade deficit with China and growing. But those tariffs did have an effect and ongoing, they will have an effect. Professor, if you can guess, and I know you hate doing this, the Supreme Court, if they get this case, where do you think they’re going to go on this one, on IEEPA? TURLEY: I think that there’s — I think that there is a good chance they’ll uphold this court in IEEPA, the — this is a statute that does not speak directly to this power, which is of course, sweeping. It’s a power that Congress is given in the Constitution. That’s going to divide some of the conservatives. So, I would not put money on the prevailing in front of the Supreme Court. That’s why they need to do belts and suspenders and go down that road that they went down before so successfully. INGRAHAM: Professor, as always, thank you very much.

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