A federal appeals court appeared skeptical Thursday of arguments from a Justice Department lawyer defending President Donald Trump's global tariff regime.
Trump has claimed he has the power to impose a vast array of new tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
His use of that statute — which does not mention the word tariffs — is the first time since it became law in 1977 that it has been invoked by a president to impose tariffs on imports from other countries.
Plaintiffs in the case say the IEEPA contains no such tariff-setting authority for a president, and argue that Trump has usurped the power of Congress to set tariffs since he regained the White House in January.
The arguments at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit were livestreamed on the court's Youtube page.
"When we look at the statute [IEEPA] ... we see foreign exchange, payments, currency" mentioned when the law gives a president power to regulate or prohibit those, one judge on the appeals panel noted to Justice Department attorney Brett Shumate.
"And there's an old expression in the law, 'noscitur a sociis': 'you know it by its friends,'" the judge said. "Tariffs seems to have no friends in that statute. So, why?"
After Shumate finished, Neal Katyal, a lawyer who argued for the plaintiffs challenging Trump's authority to unilaterally impose the tariffs, told the court, "You just heard an argument in response to [several judges' questions] that our federal courts are powerless, that the president can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants, so long as he declares an emergency."
"A breathtaking claim to power that no president has asserted in 200 years, and the consequences are staggering," Katyal said.
The last court to hear the case, the U.S. Court of International Trade, struck down both Trump's "reciprocal" and "trafficking"-related tariffs in late May.
But the Federal Circuit Appeals Court quickly paused that decision, keeping Trump's tariffs in effect while the legal challenge plays out.
The appeals court is not expected to rule Thursday in the case, V.O.S. Selections v. Trump.
Trump has held up the case as a life-or-death moment for his trade agenda.
"To all of my great lawyers who have fought so hard to save our Country, good luck in America's big case today," Trump wrote Thursday morning on Truth Social.
"If our Country was not able to protect itself by using TARIFFS AGAINST TARIFFS, WE WOULD BE 'DEAD,' WITH NO CHANCE OF SURVIVAL OR SUCCESS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" he wrote.
Katyal, the lawyer who is arguing against the Trump administration, said earlier Thursday, "The president is saying he, on his own, with his say-so, can impose these tariffs."
"And that is something no president in 200 years has ever thought. The tariff power goes all the way back to the Revolutionary War and, you know, the protests in the Boston Tea Party and the like," Katyal said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"And our Constitution was very clear in saying, you know, there's one branch that has the power to tariff and it isn't the president and it isn't the courts," Katyal said.
"It's the Congress of the United States," Katyal said.
Trump cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify his massive "reciprocal" tariff plan, which set a nearly global 10% baseline duty while slapping higher rates on dozens of individual countries.
Trump rolled out that policy in early April. But after financial markets convulsed in response, he quickly delayed the higher tariffs from taking effect.
Many of those tariffs — including revised rates for countries that have struck agreements with the U.S. or have been targeted by one of Trump's recent trade letters — are set to snap back into place Friday.
Trump also invoked IEEPA as his authority to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China over alleged cross-border threats.
There are numerous other active lawsuits challenging Trump's tariffs, but the V.O.S. case is the furthest one along and its outcome could dictate how other cases fare.
"We will continue to defend President Trump's executive authority in courtrooms across the country," Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media before the arguments began.
